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When I worked at the public library attached to my university as an undergrad I'm pretty sure some homeless dude shat his pants and I had to go to the back offices because the smell was so bad. I say he had to have shat his pants only because that's the only thing I could think of that would smell that bad and it went away when he left
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Nov 23, 2018 03:45
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JacquelineDempsey posted:This was me during the summer. Our library sponsored concert and lecture series ran from fall to spring, so If I got night shift in the summer, I missed all the YS summer reading programs in the morning, and was essentially babysitting the desk for hours on end. It is no coincidence that my reg date for SA is in August. I would think the most obvious issue would be potential liability if some little kid got a staple in the foot or something. I would also think that the rental agreement would state something to the effect of "all event participants must remain fully clothed at all times, including appropriate footwear".
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Nov 23, 2018 10:11
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Coasterphreak posted:I would also think that the rental agreement would state something to the effect of "all event participants must remain fully clothed at all times, including appropriate footwear". You'd think, but yet there wasn't anything in there because I guess no one anticipated this problem. On a similar note, we also had a county policy of "no open flames in a county building". Seems like a no-brainer, right, don't loving start a fire inside a county building? Problem was, we had a hypnotherapist who held weight loss and smoking cessation sessions in one of our small meeting rooms. We started noticing funny smells coming from Room B every time he was in, but could never quite figure it out. But since he was very adamant about us not disturbing his sessions, we were all too wary to bust in and say "hey, what's going on in here?" We had a crazy surprise ice storm one night, and got told the library was closing early. I gritted my teeth (this guy was an rear end in a top hat on a good day), knocked on the door, and came in. He was burning six aromatherapy candles during his sessions, that's why Room B always smelled like burning oranges after he left. I got to be The Mean Lady and tell him not only did he and his patients had to leave, but hey, you aren't allowed to burn candles in the meeting rooms. I mean, we are a place full of paper, maybe flaming objects in a room full of zoned out people isn't a good idea?  So "no open flames" got added in our next revision to our rental contract sheets. Another legal issue came up when someone showed up with a gun to library board meeting. Our board meetings were open to the public (after all, it's YOUR TAXPAYER MONEY), and Virginia has open carry gun laws. So dude was legally okay, he had his permit and whatnot, but it freaked out a lot of folks, understandably, and we had to call up the county attorney again to find out if this was okay. The ultimate ruling was yes, you can open carry in the library. That's the law, and that's your freedom in this hosed up commonwealth. Now this predates Pitbull, when our security person was a douchebag named John. John got all huffy and said, "well if the patrons can have guns in here, I want to carry mine too!" I mean, I can see his point, but he was such a... well, trigger happy guy that letting him carry a gun in there would not have only frightened patrons but potentially cause an incident. So back on the phone with county atty. Ruling there was that library employees could not carry firearms on their person while on the clock. Which was fine by me, last thing I wanted was to be closing up in the dark and startle him and get shot for doing my loving job, you dig? He got fired, and then made a big point of wearing his gun into the library whenever he came in to check out books. Eeesh. Sorry your dick is so small, dude.
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Nov 25, 2018 02:25
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More from memory lane.Cythereal posted:A student has started leaving Chick tracts around the library. This is going to be a fun departmental meeting. Cythereal posted:One of the more surreal moments of my career so far: a sorority girl wearing cat ears and a tail serving delicious hot Thai food to everyone still working at the library tonight. The sorority is apparently doing this for every office on campus for employees still here late at night. Cythereal posted:Students, I know it's 95 degrees out but please stop walking into the library shirtless. Cythereal posted:It is almost 3 AM and someone just came up to the front desk with a chihuahua they found wandering around on the third floor of the library. Cythereal posted:What on Earth would possess students to walk into the library, see pizza on the table behind the circulation desk in the office space, and nonchalantly walk in and try to make off with one of the boxes? Cythereal posted:There are many acceptable ways for students to get my attention when I am busy with something in the library. Whistling and shouting "Come here!" is not among them. Looking at you, elderly non-trad this morning.
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Nov 26, 2018 04:25
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Cythereal posted:More from memory lane. You know exactly why a student would try to make off with pizza, c'mon
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Nov 26, 2018 13:05
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I would have killed for Chick tracts. At least they're small and disposable. We had Gideon day a few times a year. Some of the more enterprising students would get rid of their unwanted bibles by shoving them into the book return. Mostly, though, they just left them on the tables and in the carrels. I think one year I ended up with sixty-some copies crammed into one of my desk drawers. The Gideons were pretty nice about the whole thing. They were always sorta surprised to see somebody heading toward them with ten pounds of mini-bibles, though. Speaking of, what's the weirdest thing you guys found in your book drops? Ours were surprisingly tame, just a family of squirrels and a diaper from someone who didn't see the trashcan across the sidewalk. Another branch had half a bottle of some really nice bourbon dropped off on a gameday. Rumors abound of someone trying to use it as a coke drop back in the day, but I was never able to find anyone who was actually present when it was discovered.
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Nov 28, 2018 21:00
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What is the strangest book in the library that you would judge someone the hardest for checking out?
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Nov 28, 2018 21:12
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Schweinhund posted:What is the strangest book in the library that you would judge someone the hardest for checking out? Without question, one of Anne Rice's (under a pseudonym) BDSM erotica retellings of a Disney fairy tale. The Amish romances were weird when I first started working in public libraries, but they're harmless. Written by and for lonely middle-aged women.
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Nov 28, 2018 22:04
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Those books are more extreme than 50 Shades, but mainly because they come across as having been written by someone who's never had sex or even watched porn.
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Nov 28, 2018 22:11
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Halloween Jack posted:Those books are more extreme than 50 Shades, but mainly because they come across as having been written by someone who's never had sex or even watched porn. Oh I know, I read one once out of curiosity. It was ludicrously extreme in some respects, but hilariously tame in others. Rice seems to have no understanding of foreplay and even less idea of how penises work. I downright lost it and cracked up when I got to the pony barn part.
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Nov 28, 2018 22:15
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I think library culture is to try your hardest not to judge whatever they are checking out. Secretly anything in the libertarian canon (Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, etc.) would make me judge. I worked at a university, so I knew whoever was checking out that book would most likely be an rear end in a top hat for the next 6 months and then regret it later. But, they could be doing it for research. It's already been mentioned, but Lolita is "literature" so it gets a pass despite being a really gross book. The Sword of Truth series also makes me feel sad.
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Nov 28, 2018 22:22
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I wonder what the librarian thinks when I check out books on Juche Thought that probably haven't been touched in a quarter-century.
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Nov 28, 2018 22:27
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Halloween Jack posted:I wonder what the librarian thinks when I check out books on Juche Thought that probably haven't been touched in a quarter-century. Joy. The subject librarians I knew were horrible book hoarders and would fight tooth and nail to keep a shelf of 100 year old encyclopedias that may have never been touched. By checking out that book, you are validating their instincts to preserve all books, no matter how unwanted, within this sacred space.
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Nov 28, 2018 22:35
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I once checked out a YA novel and found that the last person to check it out had been my homeroom teacher, many years before.
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Nov 28, 2018 22:40
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Mr. Prokosch posted:Joy. The subject librarians I knew were horrible book hoarders and would fight tooth and nail to keep a shelf of 100 year old encyclopedias that may have never been touched. By checking out that book, you are validating their instincts to preserve all books, no matter how unwanted, within this sacred space. This. Anyone with 'librarian' in their job title, in my experience, is either an endearingly awkward wannabe hip young person in love with the latest gadgets and technology and wants the library to have a maker-space and a 3D printer, or is a decrepit lich preserved with vinegar who regards anything not written with a typewriter to be fundamentally suspect and of no lasting value. Or they're a completely reasonable and friendly person the public never sees because they're in the back all the time trying to save the library from the previous two types and regard their punishment assignment to the back as salvation from a public they cannot hide their contempt of. I aspire to be that third sort.
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Nov 28, 2018 22:40
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Cythereal posted:Oh I know, I read one once out of curiosity. It was ludicrously extreme in some respects, but hilariously tame in others. Rice seems to have no understanding of foreplay and even less idea of how penises work. I downright lost it and cracked up when I got to the pony barn part. Anne Rice herself is actually astonishingly vanilla so that would probably make sense. She said some time in an interview that she never had sex with anybody other than her husband. I think they even waited until marriage and never bothered to get up to any crazy shenanigans. After he died I guess she had no interest at all in getting remarried. You'd expect somebody that wrote that sort of thing to have first hand experience in the craziest sex imaginable but according to her interviews she just, like, doesn't do that sort of thing. Her birth name is also Howard. She is actually a pretty interesting lady. ToxicSlurpee fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Nov 28, 2018 |
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Nov 28, 2018 23:12
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Cythereal posted:Without question, one of Anne Rice's (under a pseudonym) BDSM erotica retellings of a Disney fairy tale. Did you guys carry that series of romance novels that were --- swear I'm not making this up --- about Vikings that got time travelled to the present day, and met up with a bunch of Navy SEALS? And all these rough-and-tumble Viking ladies, with their bosoms heaving out of their bodices, seduce the SEALS? I heard about these books thanks to a webcomic and thought "aw, nah, that can't be real" and then looked it up on Google, then looked in our catalog and said "AW, NAH, WE DONT REALLY CARRY THAT, DO WE?!" poo poo was hilarious to read, especially since I worked with a couple ex-Navy guys and had fun reading certain passages aloud to them, but made me ashamed to work there for a hot minute. The one book I entertained withdrawing illicitly for "reasons" was by Joyce Meyer. I'd never heard of the lady, and I was shelf-reading the 200s and bumped into her "Pack Up Your Gloomies" book, right after 9/11 when, as a former NYer, I was chock-a block full of said gloomies. Fun cartoony cover, looked like some Chicken Soup For the Soul poo poo, maybe that would perk me up. I opened it it up right to the chapter where she goes on and on about what a wonderful Christian she was for not completely abandoning her own son for coming out as gay. He was still an abomination in the eyes of God, of course, but what a fine Christian she was for not disowning him! As a queer person, I had a really hard time not breaking the spine on that one and going "well, guess we should withdraw this". On the subject of collections and shelf-reading: who other library vets here is old enough to remember having a half shelf worth of space taken up by books about the Y2K bug issue? Even as a new hire, I was all "Okay, it's been over a year now, and the world didn't end, and I don't have anywhere else to stuff all these new-fangled books on HTML in the 000s, can we PLEASE get rid of these?"
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Nov 29, 2018 01:42
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Anne Rice herself is actually astonishingly vanilla so that would probably make sense. She said some time in an interview that she never had sex with anybody other than her husband. I think they even waited until marriage and never bothered to get up to any crazy shenanigans. After he died I guess she had no interest at all in getting remarried. You'd expect somebody that wrote that sort of thing to have first hand experience in the craziest sex imaginable but according to her interviews she just, like, doesn't do that sort of thing.
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Nov 29, 2018 02:19
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Holy poo poo the Snakes Alive guy came to my elementary school 4 years in a row, small world. Regarding censorship, I'm still trying to figure out how in the absolute gently caress my 5'th-6th grade public school library in the 90s in hyperconservative SC had the complete works of Harold Robbins.
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Nov 29, 2018 05:48
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Anne Rice herself is actually astonishingly vanilla so that would probably make sense. She said some time in an interview that she never had sex with anybody other than her husband. I think they even waited until marriage and never bothered to get up to any crazy shenanigans. After he died I guess she had no interest at all in getting remarried. You'd expect somebody that wrote that sort of thing to have first hand experience in the craziest sex imaginable but according to her interviews she just, like, doesn't do that sort of thing. This doesn't surprise me, no one with operational knowledge of a penis was involved in writing those books.  JacquelineDempsey posted:Did you guys carry that series of romance novels that were --- swear I'm not making this up --- about Vikings that got time travelled to the present day, and met up with a bunch of Navy SEALS? And all these rough-and-tumble Viking ladies, with their bosoms heaving out of their bodices, seduce the SEALS? Nope, never heard of that but at the same time no disclaimer needed, I believed you right away. quote:The one book I entertained withdrawing illicitly for "reasons" was by Joyce Meyer. I'd never heard of the lady, and I was shelf-reading the 200s and bumped into her "Pack Up Your Gloomies" book, right after 9/11 when, as a former NYer, I was chock-a block full of said gloomies. Fun cartoony cover, looked like some Chicken Soup For the Soul poo poo, maybe that would perk me up. I opened it it up right to the chapter where she goes on and on about what a wonderful Christian she was for not completely abandoning her own son for coming out as gay. He was still an abomination in the eyes of God, of course, but what a fine Christian she was for not disowning him! There's a thriving subgenre of Christian post-apocalyptic books where the apocalypse in question is literally God's judgment on the world and in the aftermath the United States is reborn as a proper Christian theocracy and everyone's been humbled and grown closer to God for the experience build a lily-white rural utopia. Then among this subgenre there are a number that are explicitly romances, almost invariably about people who were proud and materialistic and sinful before the apocalypse but were inspired by the apocalypse to come closer to God and become better people.
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Nov 29, 2018 06:01
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JacquelineDempsey posted:Did you guys carry that series of romance novels that were --- swear I'm not making this up --- about Vikings that got time travelled to the present day, and met up with a bunch of Navy SEALS? And all these rough-and-tumble Viking ladies, with their bosoms heaving out of their bodices, seduce the SEALS? Buddy, pal, romance novels are there to cater to EVERY need: quote:New York Times bestselling author Sandra Hill continues her sexy Deadly Angels series, as a Viking vangel’s otherworldly mission pairs him with a beautiful chef who whets his thousand-year-old appetite . . . e: lmao it IS part of the same series: quote:It's not easy being a Vampire Angel. StrixNebulosa fucked around with this message at 13:09 on Nov 29, 2018 |
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Nov 29, 2018 13:07
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Which one is the one with the chef? I just remembered I was marking that as a Christmas present for my girlfriend earlier this year. One of her books is named The Very Virile Viking and I keep thinking of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and giggling e: The Angel Wore Fangs. Cheers, myself.
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Nov 29, 2018 13:35
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StrixNebulosa posted:Buddy, pal, romance novels are there to cater to EVERY need: Jesus Christ, this is actually weirder than Chuck Tingle.
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Nov 29, 2018 17:07
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Mr. Prokosch posted:It's already been mentioned, but Lolita is "literature" so it gets a pass despite being a really gross book. Spoiler warning: Lolita is in fact literature and is also not pro-pedophile or a romance, all the efforts of stupid/gross cover artists notwithstanding. Even Humbert Humbert realizes by the end that he's a monster.
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Nov 29, 2018 17:20
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Antivehicular posted:Spoiler warning: Lolita is in fact literature and is also not pro-pedophile or a romance, all the efforts of stupid/gross cover artists notwithstanding. Even Humbert Humbert realizes by the end that he's a monster. Sounds like the sort of thing a pedophile would say to keep his filth on the shelves. We're on to you.
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Nov 29, 2018 17:27
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My Lovely Horse posted:Which one is the one with the chef? I just remembered I was marking that as a Christmas present for my girlfriend earlier this year. It was for a bet, but I've read her "Truly, madly, Viking". To the disappointment of my challenger, it ended up being about 20 pages at most of sex, and 200 pages of professional single mother drama.
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Nov 29, 2018 21:13
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Speaking of romance novels and things you find in the return bin, my "favorite" thing to pull out of the bin when I worked in the public library system (I thankfully now work in a specially library with next to no interaction with the general public) were romance novels covered in mysterious sticky substances. I'd tell myself "It's probably just juice or something," and then go promptly wash my hands.
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Nov 30, 2018 02:50
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I love libraries but i'm a germophobe, especially during cold and flu season. What's the best way to wipe down a book without damaging it? Or should I try not to care so much? Normal books, not the type you'd expect sexfluids on
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Nov 30, 2018 02:55
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bad posts ahead!!! posted:I love libraries but i'm a germophobe, especially during cold and flu season. What's the best way to wipe down a book without damaging it? Or should I try not to care so much? I always used antibacterial wipes to clean off the many weird unknown substances that came in on the book covers.
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Nov 30, 2018 03:12
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Nihilistic Magpie posted:Speaking of romance novels and things you find in the return bin, my "favorite" thing to pull out of the bin when I worked in the public library system (I thankfully now work in a specially library with next to no interaction with the general public) were romance novels covered in mysterious sticky substances. I'd tell myself "It's probably just juice or something," and then go promptly wash my hands. I recall a very old (and non-SA) message board thread from an adult-video-store clerk who cited the VHS version of this problem as the worst part of her job. Seems legit.
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Nov 30, 2018 07:25
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bad posts ahead!!! posted:I love libraries but i'm a germophobe, especially during cold and flu season. What's the best way to wipe down a book without damaging it? Or should I try not to care so much?
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Nov 30, 2018 07:47
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My aunt was a school librarian when she read working, and would always bring over stacks ord whatever books stea being discarded from either the library or get own kids for me to read. When I was in gaul my mother had mentioned something to get about how she wasn't sure if the subject matter of some book I wanted to read was appropriate, and my aunt really went to bat against any sort of censorship and basically told my mom she couldn't restrict my access to reading material or I would never want to read. I love how committed to libertarian ethics my aunt is. She still brings over boxes of books her grandkids are done with for my kids to read. I probably still should not have been reading "It" in 4th grade though. On the subject of "Lolita," I read it in high school and felt like the guy was trying to make the girl to be the evil one. It's been 20 years but did I read that book wrong? I have no desire to reread it or to have anything related to it in my search history. Also my wife is a middle school teacher and today she had a girl that had been a voracious reader come in and ask to borrow another book. It is the sort of situation where it sounds like things might be tough at home. My wife asked her if she ever goes to the library to get books, and the kid said, "Do you mean like Barnes and Noble?" The kid is in 7th grade, has never been to a library, and doesn't know what a library is. My wife is going to print out some directions to the nearest branch for her tomorrow.
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Nov 30, 2018 07:53
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This isn't a Nabokov thread, but Humbert tells you he's an unreliable narrator and a liar right off the bat. Yes, the book portrays Lo as the aggressor, to some extent, and he does sort of treat her like a villain, but at no point is the reader meant to take his side. I could be wrong, but that's how I've always interpreted it. Also, Lolita is an amazing book and I'll pee all over all y'all's shoes to defend it (I'm sure Quilty would approve.)
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Nov 30, 2018 08:08
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Fleta Mcgurn posted:This isn't a Nabokov thread, but Humbert tells you he's an unreliable narrator and a liar right off the bat. Yes, the book portrays Lo as the aggressor, to some extent, and he does sort of treat her like a villain, but at no point is the reader meant to take his side. I could be wrong, but that's how I've always interpreted it. Don't stand so close to me.
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Nov 30, 2018 08:11
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therobit posted:Don't stand so close to me. You smell that? That's piss AND literature, baby.
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Nov 30, 2018 08:18
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Fleta Mcgurn posted:You smell that? That's piss AND literature, baby. Do I have to call The Police?
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Nov 30, 2018 14:06
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Lurking Haro posted:Do I have to call The Police? *whispers into your ear, exhaling way too hard* "Would you like to sit on my lap as I read The Lady Who Loved Lightning, little girl?" *leers Nabokovly*
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Nov 30, 2018 15:00
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Fleta Mcgurn posted:You smell that? That's piss AND literature, baby. So it smells like a library?
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Nov 30, 2018 16:18
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therobit posted:So it smells like a library? The aroma of old books and hobo pants. So, 50% good. love that hobo stank
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Nov 30, 2018 16:41
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Halloween Jack posted:I wonder what the librarian thinks when I check out books on Juche Thought that probably haven't been touched in a quarter-century. I had a librarian part-time scholarship for some months at an Arab Studies department, and a foreign law student often came around looking for obscure law books. I had to physically cut open some of them for him, they had never been read before. It felt good to know they were getting some love, and also that upper management would see them being used and therefore would not have a excuse to get rid of them. Old forgotten books rule 
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