Summer Hell at The Library Prompts Librarian To Offer Patron Tips

From Katynopocket:

Hi everyone! It's been a while. Well, I am still at the library and things are chugging along as usual. Summer Reading is finally over, thank the Lord! Seriously, it's been a long summer. Kids everywhere and no parents in sight. Teenagers making out on benches in the fiction area. Homeless people sleeping at our study tables. Or worse, yelling profanities at all the other people trying to study. I think I'm getting really burned out. The general public as a whole is just mean. Horrible, cranky, complaining people who make our jobs suck.

Here, general public, have some tips on how to be better patrons:

Don't come up to the circulation desk and toss your card on the counter in front of us. It's rude. And don't complain to the manager when the fed up clerk tosses it back at the end of the transaction. Also, don't hand us your card wordlessly, and then when we politely ask if you have a reserve to pick up, instantly and sarcastically berate us for guessing wrongly. Speak. Don't make us guess.

Do not bring your dog hair filled, moldy books to the library and generously 'donate' them. I'm allergic to dogs and I can do without my hands itching all afternoon after touching those books. If the boxes you bring in have mouse poop, live or dead bugs, including bed bugs, spiders, roaches, or TAMPONS, just do everyone a favor and throw them in the dumpster instead. That's where they're headed anyway. Save me the trouble. Oh yeah, same goes if they are mysteriously wet. Uggh. All of that has happened, by the way.

Don't remove your bloody bandages and leave them on our printer or in our elevator. Or bloody gauze, or bloody kleenex. Bloody anything, people! Gross! What's wrong with you?

Keep your shoes on. And shirt. And if you are a girl and wear a shirt that's split all the way down both sides, but no bra under it, so the world can see pretty much your entire boob, you either don't own a mirror or have a common sense deficit. 

Along that line, please, I beg of you, wear deodorant. We can't open the windows, so we're stuck smelling your funk for sometimes the entirety of the work day. How do you stand yourself? Can't you smell? Can't you tell your shirt is soaked in sweat and sticking to you? Yet you sit at a computer, letting your sweat soak into the cloth of the chair, driving other patrons instantly away, and you don't care? Of course you don't care. You're not normal. That's why you're at the library every single day instead of out getting a life.

When you ask a question at one of the reference desks, and it takes longer than 2.5 seconds for the librarian to find the answer, DO NOT start drumming your fingers on the desk. There's a row of computers right behind you. Go find an empty one and look it up yourself. I'm not Google. 

I cannot read your book to you. Yes, someone asked. It was an adult, not a child, and they were serious. 

If you are having trouble with the computer or printer, do not snap your fingers at me, and then when I come over, threaten to put your fist through something if I don't fix the problem. How counterproductive. I know it's frustrating, but really. 

Turn your cell phone off. It's a library, not your living room.

Don't bring your switchblade and set it on the keyboard while you type or show it off to other patrons. We'll probably notice. 

Bring headphones. It's a library.

When your kid poops, change them. Poop filled diapers in a closed room are nauseating. 

If I have to talk to your kid for any reason, don't come storming up to the desk later, misquoting me and yelling about how I should have done this or that instead. Where were you when your kid ran by the desk half a dozen times? Or when he or she rode up and down in the elevator screaming? Or left their younger sibling alone while they ran off with friends? I hate you, horrible parent. Would it kill you to come to the library with your child? We are not babysitters.

Don't come up to the desk with a smashed laptop and swear at us when we tell you we don't fix laptops. 

Finally, I cannot be expected to know the ins and outs of every single phone, iPad, or e-reader. It's your device. Shoving it at me and telling me you can't download books and then getting impatient at my questions and even more impatient while I attempt to figure out what went wrong will make me angry and mentally fatigued. You asked for help so I'm trying to help. A sliver of gratitude or a simple thank you would be nice. 

Here's to a better couple of months. 

--Katynopocket

 

 

Comments

[Skittles]

Wow that sucks. Here's a librarian joke to hopefully brighten your day.

How can you tell when a librarian is cumming?

She puts her book down.

Told to me by a librarian friend. Also don't be too hard on the gals showing the boobage, some of us appriciate that. The rest of that stuff sounds absurd though, blood soaked anything left lying about, just makes me shudder in sympathy.

[The Last Archimedean]

As someone who loves libraries, greatly enjoys books, and thinks librarians and schoolteachers should be paid a hell of a lot more than they make and useless corporate executives a lot less, I feel your pain. I hate inconsiderate patrons for ruining MY library experience and I'm only there for an hour a week, you have to be there 40 hours a week.

[Although if a female is sufficiently voluptuous, with plenty of flesh and lots and lots of womanly curves, flashing some skin is forgivable -- if you're a skinny twig, which is anyone whose mass in kilos isn't a three-digit number or dawggone close to one, fuhgeddabouddit and leave the sexy outfits to women who actually have something to show off. As for the rest of the bad behaviors listed, grow a brain, people -- we don't need your idiocy ruining everyone's library trips.]

[Soft Ice Girl]

I feel for you.. hopefully it will get better.
In my favourite library, the librarians enforce the rules- meaning: If you are too noisy or misbehave in some other manner, you get one warning. And the second time you raise your voice, you get thrown out and are free to come back the next day.
And they don´t accept donations unless it is agreed on in advance.
By the way, they do have a kids´ section where there are some comfy cushions and big toys so children can read there. Children do come there by themselves, and it works just fine. Of course, they need to be reprimanded sometimes, but in general, there are few problems, because the librarians may enforce the rules so that people (including children) know that either they behave or get thrown out.

[Soft Ice Girl]

@ The Last Archimedean:
If you prefer large women, it is fine. But would you please not infer that women who do not fit your taste are not attractive and should not wear revealing clothes? I weigh 60 kilos and if someone would say your text out loud upon seeing me, I would feel insulted and confront them. I guess that you do not mean this as insult, and hope that you do not say such things to a particular woman, but I would like you to know that it can be insulting.

[The Last Archimedean]

Soft, your guess is correct. It was not meant to be insulting to lighter women, more of my appreciation for the Rubenesque female form.

I hope it is not taken as an insult by anyone. I do apologize if anyone feels offended.

And I like your library's rules. I wish more libraries would do that. They seem afraid to eject rude bastards.

[Bored at the Bookstore]

I own a book store, my son is the manager there; daughter is a library director, my hubby is circulation supervisor (working for our daughter, believe it or not), and my sister is the tech librarian at another library. I truly understand where you're coming from! My deepest sympathies.

Incidentally, have you met unshelved.com? A cartoon world set in a library I wouldn't mind frequenting. The desk guy, Dewey, speaks for lots of librarians.

[Vastarien]

I have only the deepest respect for librarians and I have always considered any library to be holy ground. The library is a temple of knowledge and imagination, and to behave in such a deplorable way is nothing less than blasphemy in my mind.

[Queer Geek]

Being someone who loves libraries, I wholeheartedly agree with your statements!

[Julia]

Reading this gave me flashbacks of my former public library position (ranging from minimum-wage page to PT Clerk III). Despite the posted rules regarding, among other things, personal hygiene and conduct, I think it was near impossible to be banned (possibly a civil liberties issue being a public place). I think only violent or threatening acts were truly grounds for permanent expulsion. We had an army of security guards, so I felt fairly secure.

I wish I had the academic discipline to earn a MLS. I think libraries are treasures.

[Jami]

Yes to all of these. And a few of my own -

Along with women who insist on flashing their side boobs to the world, men, pull you damn pants up.

Patrons, it's really none of your business if a member of the staff is single and childless. Marriage and parenthood isn't for everyone. This goes double for coworkers.

I'm sorry the computers are all in use but whining to me won't make others get off faster. Go use the reservation station.

If I'm already helping someone else, wait your turn. Don't stand there saying "Excuse me" over and over. Especially if there's another worker who's not busy you could ask.

Stop stealing the toilet paper. Stop flushing your underwear down the men's bathroom toilet.

[The Last Archimedean]

Amen to everything Jami just said.

Patrons, it's perfectly understandable to be attracted to a librarian. But there are better ways to flirt than to be inquiring about her marital staus or whether she has kids.

[Jami]

I wish in my case it was flirting, TLA. It's usually older women with grandchildren who bug me about it. Though one time, I kid you not, a man saw how I interacted with his kids and asked me if I had any of my own. I informed him "No." When he asked why not I said it was because I didn't have a husband or boyfriend. Since we're right across the street from two churches that usually shuts most patrons up. He said, as his wife and children stood behind him, "Just go to a bar, pick up a guy, and trick him into getting you pregnant. Children don't need a father."

I was utterly flabbergasted. His children all got really quiet and his wife just looked sad.

It sounds unbelievable but it really happened.

Thankfully, now that I know I've got poly cystic ovary syndrome and that can cause difficulty getting pregnant, I can honestly tell people my womb is barren. Doesn't stop them from dropping the marriage thing though. Sorry, folks, but I just don't want to get married. Commitment isn't for me. Still, I wish people would just mind their own business! Let me check out/in your books, collect fines, and we'll all go on with our lives.

[The Last Archimedean]

If I lived near you, Jami, and I was unattached I'd come into your library and ask the pretty librarian [you], very politely, for a date. You seem to have a sweet personality, you have to to be able to put up with all that and not remove some jerk's throat with youre bare hands!

[Jami]

Thanks TLA, but I'm not actually a librarian, I'm a library clerk. So instead of helping people find stuff I get to check books in, check them out, get yelled at over 25 cents....

I've had -

1: A guy hit the desk repeatedly over the 25 cent hold fee.

2: A woman keep me on the phone for 15 minutes after I called her about a book she returned that was sopping wet saying how she was 54 years old and hadn't even read the book because it was boring. (Note that her other two books along with everything else in the book drop was bone dry.)

3: A mother of a boy she allowed in the library while she stayed outside yacking on her cellphone yell at me that he was autistic and I should've been keeping an eye on him when he put $20 in the Friends Of The Library money box. (He purchased two movies that were $1 apiece.) I didn't know there was anything "wrong" with him. He seemed like a typical 12 year old boy to me. My name is not Professor Charles Xavier. I'm not your psychic babysitter. If your kid doesn't understand money why did you send him in here alone?!

4: Countless "Why don't you have kids?" "When are you getting married?" and their variations.

5: A man ask to use the phone who then spent ten minutes leaving a message to his shrink's answering service about how he didn't mean to threaten her and she didn't need to have security there.

6. Them: "Why do I have to pay? I returned the books." Me: "Because they're a month past the due date."

7: Drunk patrons, high patrons, smelly patrons, loud patrons, too quiet patrons, patrons who whined about how noisy story time is.

8: Patron obsessed with getting on the computers yelling at me in front of a priest I was helping.

10: Patrons who give me a hard time because I like to read comic books.

It's not like it's all bad. I've had a lot of good ones too. And my branch manager is English so she gets it when I make a Doctor Who reference. Heck, I came to work last Halloween in my homemade TARDIS costume, then stopped by later that evening with my dog whom I had dressed as The Doctor. (I was going for William Hartnell but people said she looked more like Jon Pertwee.)

However, thanks to both Twilight and 50 Shades Of Grey I'm about to go DC super villain crazy. Yes, we have 50 Shades Of Utter Dreck for people to borrow. Every time I have to handle one of those books I go for the hand sanitizer right afterwards. More for psychological reasons than anything.

[The Last Archimedean]

Can I be your lackey when you go DC super villian crazy? There are a few library patrons I'd like to get back at. I'd flatten their face with a hardback copy of Gone With The Wind, or some other large, heavy book.

And you work in a library, so library clerk to me = just as good as a librarian. They both have to deal with the insane people.

[Jami]

Sure. I've already got a friend who says she'll be The Papyrus Princess, and I shall be The Bookworm. So you need to pick a name. My costume is going to include a mask shaped like catseye glasses with rhinestones that flash hypnotic colors and a cape that when opened looks like an opened book.

[heavy melvanova]

Dear Lord, where do I start?

Please don't leave your laptop, keys, wallet, watch, iphone, ipad, gold bars/diamonds, whatever all over the tables, then wander off. They WILL get stolen, and it sure as schnitzel ain't my fault. This is a PUBLIC library, not your living room.

Please don't leave your heavy duty meds in a non-childproof bottle on a library table, then wander off. Really, this was the weirdest thing! I had to take a picture of it just in case, and someone else did confirm they were heavy stuff. That baby went right behind the ref desk, let me tell you.

Please don't pee in the elevator, we have restrooms here.

Please don't come in and bitch and moan and demand we let your little juvenile delinquent child back into the library to "study". He/she has never even looked at a book anytime they've ever been here, last time they were here they started a huge fight and we had to call the cops. There were injuries. This was not the first time. Your child causes nothing but problems, security is notified the minute they walk into the library, and other patrons complain and are scared. Face it, you raised a bad kid. You wanna moan, fine go talk to the friggin mayor ...

And my favorite: no, you DO NOT pay my salary!! Cops and teachers, yes you do ... MAYBE 2% of your local tax bill goes to the library, depending on where you live. Here, most of our money comes from private funding and some from the federal/state government. Even our paychecks are from Chase, not XXX Government. So don't bitch at me about your fines, our services, my appearance and how you "pay our salaries", cause you don't. And hey, I pay taxes too, so I guess I pay myself. Be gone!

[Jami]

Oh, thought of some more.

I don't know about other countries but here in America, yes, because of the Freedom Of Information Act we can't stop you from looking at porn. Unless another patron complains. But please, use a little common sense and choose a computer not easily seen on the ADULT side, not the children's side or where teenagers can see you.

Everything Heavy said and then some!

Yes, we need your library card. No, I can't look you up by name. I don't care how special you think your name is. I assure you, even if it's Luna Stardust TARDIS Enterprise Deathstar Jones there will be difficulty. Especially since you probably are actually under here under your original name of Laura Smith.

Do NOT let small children have any sort of writing/drawing tools or scissors when they're reading library books! And yes, you DO have to pay for the damage. Do you really expect your three year old to pay?

[Zeus the Geek]

RE: "My taxes pay your salary!"
First, I've gotten this from patrons who do not, in fact, pay my salary. Here in Illinois you can use your card from any public library at pretty much any other public library. This means some of our patrons' taxes don't actually go to the library I work at. Second, the tax rate is not even 2%. We have a worksheet for those who live in unincorporated areas, who do not pay any library taxes at all; all they have to do is pay an equivalent amount as if they did. We take their property tax bill and multiply it by .0021. For those bad at math, that's a whopping 0.21%. Breaking the bank here folks.

RE: Mysterious liquids
I'm not sure what's worse, mysterious liquids or non-mysterious liquids. We had a patron come in, get sick in the plastic bag they were carrying their books in, and proceed to continue to return them, in full view of the staff. We sealed the bag and sent them a letter that said "Seriously?! What the fuck! Why on earth would you think we wanted these back, you shit-wit?!" (In more polite and professional terms, and with a bill, of course)

[Book Baby]

I see I am in good company! I can add a few to these:

Don't lie to us in front of your kids. "Why, NO, I would NEVER damage a book!" only to have your child pipe up, "Mommy, you cut that recipe out of this magazine. Remember?"

We can't help it if your bike get stolen from the bike rack outside when you DIDN'T LOCK IT UP.

Don't barf all over the bathroom and leave without telling us. Or flood the toilets, or...well, you get the idea.

We can't hold your reserved books for more than a week. The computer will NOT allow it. Not to mention, if we DID hold items longer, we would be up to our navels in books in a coupe of days.

Do NOT leave your little ones unattended in the Children's area. Our state law says that kids under TEN may NOT be left alone in a public building. We are NOT a babysitting service.

All of the fines you pay won't even pay our light bill. We are not getting rich off of the books you returned a freaking MONTH late.

Libraries are NOT FREE!!!!!!! We are paid for by taxes, just like schools, police and fire. No, we do NOT work as volunteers. We, too, have bills to pay.

We can't help it if the DVDS/CDs are scratched. Some people treat everything they touch as garbage.

The shelves are out of order? We do not have time to read the shelves every day. Instead of griping about it, why don't YOU volunteer to put them in order for us? We would be ever so grateful!

Do not expose yourself to the teenyboppers in the YA section or to the employees. We don't want to see your dingle balls and other equipment and we most certainly don't want to see them TOUCHING our books!

Don't like a book? Do not deface it; put it back on the shelf. Just because you think it's Satanic/a waste of printing/against your religion, etc., doesn't mean someone else won't read it. I will never EVER read "Twilight" or "Fifty Shades of Grey", but I don't mind if someone else does. Creationist books with dinosaurs and cavemen together are my particular pet peeve, but hey,if that floats your boat,go for it!

Don't put garbage in our outside drop boxes!

I could go on and on. I truly love my job, but these sorts of things drive me batty.

[Jami]

Oooh! See, I keep thinking of more!

People, weeding is necessary! We are neither the trunk of the Weasley's car nor the TARDIS. We are not bigger on the inside. I'm sorry you think books on tape are superior to books on CD, but most people don't have tape players anymore. No, no one is really going to need that book on real estate from 1964. Seriously, we do need to weed that 1979 tax book.

And yes, that moldy, smelly, falling apart Bible/Koran/Buddhist wisdom/book on evolution/book about how we're all here because of aliens does have to go. Sorry you think it's horrible of us that we have to get rid of a coffee soaked copy of Billy Graham or Richard Dawkins work, but I don't think people like Starbucks enough to want to read a book drenched in it.

And if any of you are interested in seeing the weird things librarians have held onto go to AwfulLibraryBooks.net

[SusannahJoy]

I know this is a little late, but I hope someone sees and responds- there's been a few times that I've gotten a book from my local library, and while reading it the binding got loose, so chunks of the book are barely attached. When I return them I usually give them directly to the people at the desk with a little heads up "Hey, I need to return this, but it looks like it needs to be reglued. Thanks!" And then go on my merry way. I have gotten the dirtiest looks for that! Am I wrong to let them know? I figured pushing them through the slot would just damage the books more...

[Jami]

@Susannah - If they're giving you dirty looks either they're wrongly blaming you, or they're taking their frustrations out on you. We all know that publishers are skimping on proper binding materials to save money. It really gets on our nerves to constantly glue them back together.

I wish they'd go back to sewing the books together. So many books like those outlast the latest best seller.

[A]

This makes me sad and I've been seeing more and more of it in recent years. Libraries have always been one of my favorite places, but recently, the two I visit most often have been full of screaming kids and equally rude adults and it breaks my heart. If I'm pained by my inability hide in a chair behind the nonfiction section and read and browse in peace, I can't begin to imagine the anguish of those who don't have the option to check out and go home. I've taken to ordering and putting books on hold so I spend the least amount of time possible in the nearer of the two because I almost got into a fight with an old lady who's in there every week and insists on berating the poor library slaves at the top of her voice every chance she gets. and I'm pretty sure she just comes in to practice insulting people, considering I've never once seen her return or check out a book.

[M M]

Do not give out misinformation at political events then send people to the library to look it up. I can't prove the president or congress did A B or C, because it isn't true.
I also don't know when the next paranormal event will occur. (Not a talk on paranormal events or a ghost tour, but an actual event).