The Worst Library on the Internet
The Worst Library on the Internet
The end of the world has to come at some point, right? Fire and death or just a general slow spin to the stop, the big ball of dirt has to go barren at some point. For the last few centuries, that is The Apocalypse.
Read MoreThe annual American Library Association conference has come and gone. New Orleans took the brunt this year, the warm wild city welcoming librarians from all over as well as Michelle Obama and Emilio Estevez. I for one am excited with how Young Guns 3 seems to be shaping up.
Read MoreRemember back in the day when the office party would be raging and Brenda would drop her pants and hop up on the copy machine? Me neither, library holiday parties have never been ragers. But that butt copy has always been a temptation, huh? Maybe not for long. Old tech dies with each generation, speeding up. Here are thirteen reasons why your library no longer needs a copy machine.
Read MoreFrom the year 2000 to 2003, I worked in a lot of varied jobs to pay my rent while I went to college. A lot of those jobs were in kitchens, those hot and sweaty and crowded dens of iniquity. Years after, I read Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain and was transported to those times and those people with a strange sense of nostalgia and love. This past week Mr. Bourdain took his own life, casting my mind back to other memories of that time.
Read MoreEarlier today, I checked the library suggestion box.
Don't ever check the library suggestion box. Just let the damn thing sit there and get full. When it's full, take it to the back, further back past the circulation librarian's office, past the technical services desk, past the table with tape all over it because that's how you fix books. Take it to the back dark corner of the workroom and set it down.
Next you need a metal trash can. If you do not have a metal trash can, can you even call yourself a library?
Take the metal trash can and drag it over to the dark corner in the back of the library. If there is anything in the metal trash can not worth burning, take it out.
Start a fire with your library-issued chrome lighter. Use what you can, but make it hot and make it burn. Broken pallets work best or pine wood for scent.
When the yellow and orange cleansing bath has been drawn, pick up the suggestion box. Hold it tight and close to the flames. Lid out, at an angle, open the box.
There may be a force from the escaping suggestions. Allow the box to cradle in your arm, much like a baby attempting to get down but a baby that needs to eat. Eat baby, eat, you say as you tip the open suggestion box forward to the fire.
When you are done, feel free to return the box to the circulation desk. It's presence makes people feel better. As if they are being listened to.
If you have a question or comment for the library, reach out to us on our contact page, twitter, or email. Never Facebook or its hell spawn Instagram. Or maybe.
You find yourself in a locked room. Two bookcases are along one wall. A door is across from them. The door has a dozen locks, all different and all requiring a code, key, or fingerprint. The door is solid as the walls. In the corner, you hear the hiss of air from a vent.
To escape this room, do the following:
Read MoreThis tale is about three men: Andrew Goodman, Michael "Mickey" Schwerner, and James Chaney. These three men, well, boys really, they were college age and down in Mississippi in the summer of 1964. Freedom Summer. They were there helping people of color register to vote.
On June 21, 1964, a church was set ablaze by the Ku Klux Klan. Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney went out to the church that night to see if everyone was okay. On the way back, they were pulled over and arrested. They were held by police until ten o'clock at night when they were freed. Their ride along Highway 19, followed by a police car, could only be one of creeping dread.
Eventually they were stopped again by police. The officer told them to follow him back the way they came, toward Philadelphia, Mississippi. Other cars joined the caravan and they were lead out to a deserted road.
Cheney, a black man, was beaten and shot while over half a dozen men looked on. Schwerner and Goodman were shot as well. The three were buried in an earthen damn and not discovered for forty-four days. It took the combined efforts of the FBI and other federal agencies to find the bodies. Seven men were convicted of federal court for civil rights violations because the state of Mississippi would not charge anyone with the state crime of murder. None served more than six years total for the crime.
In 2005, Edgar Ray Killen was convicted of planning and organizing the killings. A recruiter and organizer for the Klan, Killen made his living as a saw mill operator and part-time preacher. On January 11, 2018 he died in prison. Reports say near the end he changed his ways, signing over his land and power of attorney to his black cellmate.
Franklin Roosevelt said, "“I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.” Killen made enemies for himself of three college aged boys, boys who only came to help and who had their lives sprawling out before them. He and over half a dozen other men judged those boys and killed them. Cheney, Goodman, and Schwerner did not get the fifty-three years of life Killen got. I hope he used the years well. I hope he did his enemies proud in the end.
So go out and tell your children that bad men exist. Tell them bad men can change. Evil can be defeated and all men die. Tell your children that sometimes, though, justice takes a long time after the heroes are dead and gone.
Helping a patron find a book is a hard proposition sometimes. It's so rare that we do it now in the age of ebooks and ejournals and enonsense. Still, some people do need to find a physical copy to dirty with their dirty hands. Here's the steps you should take to find a book for a patron.
Sometimes the patron knows the item they need. They come to the circulation desk, slam down a wad of paper and say, "Pillow Monsters by Abraham Funkytown, please." Then you can look up the item and determine that it is in the library. If the patron does not know the exact title and author, well, you could question them or just guess. Guessing is fun. Also, Amazon has a lot of stuff so you could find the spelling there.
Find the title in the computer box. You did that and it rewarded you with a location. That location will tell you where to find the book. Because that's how locations work. Never point to the location of the book, no matter if its an easy book in a dump bin. Always walk the patron to the location, filling them with tidbits like "this is where we keep the books."
Two things can happen when you walk into the stacks to find a book*. You find the book or you don't find the book. Schrodinger's book until you make it to the shelf, if you will. Finding the book is easy: just give it to them, dummy. If you don't find the book, though, well…
As the philosopher John Bender said, "Screws fall out all the time, the world is an imperfect place." This includes books as well. Books can fall behind other books, be misplaced on other shelves, been picked up and placed on a table. Exhaust all options. Check all the places, including transposing all letters for numbers in the call number**.
Go back to the cataloging department. Those assholes sometimes grab books as they come in or pull them from the shelf for whatever mystical reason without updating the system***. Do not allow the patron to follow you into this den of thieves and liars. If you must, kneecap the patron to keep them from following you. Say, "I'll be right back" in your most confident tone.
Everywhere has been checked for the book, even in your own hands and the pocket of your jacket. The book cannot be found. Time to pass the buck. Tell the patron you will place a hold on the item for them. Most libraries have a list of books that patrons are looking for or are too lazy to get on their own. These lists are checked daily by library peons who often with their fresh eyes find books easier than you can with a crying patron following you. Go figure.
*Okay, actually there are nine, but most of those are fantasies involving Neil Gaiman, Karen Gillan, Idris Elba, or a combination of the three.
**When typed out, 5's look a lot like S's, 8's can become 0's or O's, and in very few circumstances "&" can become "=."
***Their excuse is often "nobody wants to read that shit."
It's the holidays so we here at the library have been watching lots of holiday movies, but the one that shines by far has been Generic Holiday Movie Cash Grab.
Random Blonde Lady and Tall Handsome Guy play a couple of characters who just can't seem to get in the holiday spirit. Without spoiling anything, something tragic happened at some point. Lady and Guy then get a visit from an unlikely holiday-themed place. At first, they are put off by the cheer. Will the two of them find it in their hearts to be romantic in the snow and save the thing from not being a thing for the community?
At the core of Generic Holiday Movie Cash Grab is the romance. Lady and Guy are perfect as the couple smashed together by fate as if they were action figures played with by a hyperactive child. The screenplay guides them through a generic romance plot with a layer of snow and random jingling bells to denote the holidays are here! You'll be hard pressed not to be entertained by the side characters as well, with sarcastic Gay Best Friend and Friend of Color providing commentary and Old Flame Person slinking around for some manufactured drama.
And don't forget the Little Broken Child. You'll shed a tear as Guy and Lady warm to the Little Broken Child and find the true meaning of the holiday: Fammunity.
So cuddle up and watch the carefully edited for television breaks plot guide you toward feelings you may or may not feel at a time of year you're pressured to observe because at the darkest, coldest part of the year our species is driven to celebrate our eternal fight against death.
From our fammunity to yours, have a happy generic holiday and enjoy a movie that still can appeal to religious people despite positing universal values no one can dispute.
The library is counting down the days until Christmas and wants to let you know what you can give us. We've been all around town and have located dozens of items for our list. Here are a few.
"Tits out Miss Piggy Bank" is the number one item on our list for collecting fines and overall just lightening up the children's desk.
"Suck It Monkey" will be a delightful addition to our reference collection.
By hiring "Drunken Italian Stereotype," we feel our Books and Dinner programs will have the best food available.
Nuff said.
The library needs a mentor and what better to lead us than a figure from our past?
The library needs to show children with "The Boy Who Didn't Believe" that if you don't believe in things, a fat bearded man will kidnap you.
Can't go wrong with a box of hammers.
Zombie Santa wants us as much as we want him.
Again, the children's desk is looking a little drab. Can't you help us lighten it up with the flintlock lamp?
Don't think we didn't forget about the Circulation Department's voodoo doll collection.
Nothing wrong with a sexual representation of Mr. And Mrs. Clause.
Just cause.
If you don't have a bucket of leering Santas on your wish list, whose dick are you trying to suck?
We round out the list with our favorites: What if Santa was a Muppet...
and what if Mrs. Clause needed some sex?
Fall is here! Shit fell off trees!
This past week's book was At the Mountains of Madness by HP Lovecraft because it was short and on sale. Still, it took me too long to listen to and honestly, I barely listened to it. If you've ever read Lovecraft, you know the archaic language can be impenetrable and at 2X speed I listen to things... My mind wandered, Still, check it out.
Still making it through Peyton Place and by god, this is an excellent book. Just trash and awesome at it, showing with blatant fury the small town bullshit with a punk rock attitude of "fuck all these people."
Lots of things this day made me super happy, from @libraryeliza realizing that the old man teacher in the Last Jedi trailer was Luke Skywalker, but the top has to be "How to Tell a Story" by Mark Twain. This short essay makes me super happy to read because our greatest American author still commands that title by playing with and enjoying the art of story deconstruction. Pauses and rambling, indeed.