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So even though I've been on the SA forums for some time now, I just came across this thread. I've worked at my local library for over 20 years, first as a page, then as a circulation clerk. My library is in a affluent neighborhood in upstate NY, and our budget is tied to the school district which no one wants to touch so we're fairly well funded. We've been riding out COVID pretty well, mainly doing curbside pickup. We did have a limited opening in the late summer / early fall (30 people at a time, had to wear masks, could only stay for 30 minutes, browsing and checkouts only) however an up-spike in COVID numbers in our area in November caused us to revert back to curbside only. As a side effect of the COVID, people have been clearing out old books and trying to "donate" them to the library, To be fair, most people call ahead to see if we want their books, but some just drop them in our book drops. To give you an idea, here's a photo from 2017. Note that a lot of these books were outdated, and all of them were moldy.  A more recent donation from 2020.  Just what the library is looking for, encyclopedias that are over 20 years old. The_Other fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Feb 18, 2021 |
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Feb 18, 2021 18:44
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 05:41 |
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Here are some more brief donation tales: Occasionally we get stuff from the Church of Scientology. Once we got a box of books from Bridge Publications, who "publish the non-fiction works of L. Ron Hubbard", which ended up going to the recycling center. We also used to get sent copies of their magazine Freedom, although with how erratically it gets published I rarely see it anymore. Another time our former head of reference went over to a man's house because he wanted to "donate" a collection of books. Not only were the books in poor condition and not of use to the library, but he also asked "how much will you give me for them?". Needless to say she didn't take them. Finally the strangest donation happened one Saturday before the Superbowl. A man donated two cases of Miller Lite.
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Feb 25, 2021 22:13
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Re: The Scientology stuff. Most of what they donated wasn't related to Scientology directly. IIRC it was Hubbard's other "non-fiction" writings, it actually looked like those old Time-Life encyclopedia style book series. The revision to the Scientology doctrine Fleta Mcgurn is talking about were mostly for the high level "Operating Thetan" (or OT) courses, that cost anywhere from $500,000 to $2 million dollars and can only be taken at certain locations, one if which is the ship Freewinds. There mainly doing that to get more money from their wealthier members, Chick Corea, for example, had to redo OT8 back in 2016. Incidentally if you are interesting in Scientology reporting check out the website I linked, The Underground Bunker, the author, Tony Ortega has been reporting on Scientology for decades.JacquelineDempsey posted:Anyone ever get porn donated to the library, either deliberately or on accident? Never got porn directly donated to us, but one time someone did leave a hentai VHS in our book swap bin. The_Other fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Mar 9, 2021 |
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Mar 5, 2021 04:42
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So at my library today, during the shift before mine, a woman somehow got her hand stuck in our book drop. The morning crew were able to get her out but she lost two diamonds off the ring she was wearing.
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Mar 7, 2021 01:59
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My Lovely Horse posted:Oh yeah the style guide I have, I've read it up and down. I even looked up how to use a grid in graphics design. Well, I found out that you do. Once we had a fire at my library and the firefighters had to stop people from trying to get in.
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Mar 24, 2021 14:53
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So for the past several years (since at least 2018) the library I work at has been undergoing renovation, with a major part of that being the expanding and upgrading the children's room. It's taken longer than they said it would of course, between the usual construction delays, the fact that the town fired the contractors about half-way through the job, and of course COVID. I used to joke with the patrons that the construction would be completed sometime after Brexit. However, earlier this year they did finish up (pretty much) and we were able to open up the new and expanded children's room. Imagine my surprise yesterday when I went in and found the children's room blocked off. It seems about an hour before I went in a 92-year-old man in the parking lot had lost control of his car and rammed into one of the new windows. Nobody was hurt as we hadn't opened to the public yet, but it looks like the children's room will be closed until we can replace the glass. Here's a photo from the inside:  and one from the outside I took after we closed that evening. You can see the skid marks from the tires in the grass. 
The_Other fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Jul 20, 2021 |
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Jul 20, 2021 18:22
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So the broken window I posted about a few weeks ago was fixed sometime last week (I was away on vacation). Also another weird patron story, which I originally posted in the Star Trek thread: The_Other posted:So I work in a public library in a town in upstate New York. Since the library is part of the town's school district we abide by the school district's rules regarding face masks and still require people coming into the library to wear them, providing disposable face masks if needed. Some people grumble about this but they eventually agree to wear them.
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Aug 10, 2021 17:18
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So the library I work at is probably going fine-free next year, mainly because several other libraries in our system have already gone fine-free. I have mixed feelings about the idea. I can see why the patrons would like it, although the people in our immediate area should have little money worries (the median household income is around $250,000 if I’m reading the data from data.census.gov right). From the perspective of the staff it also makes things easier as it is one less thing to have to deal with. During the quarantine months of COVID we stopped charging fines on anything that was returned to our library and did alright, however we were closed on Sundays which lowered our costs somewhat (staff that worked Sundays was still paid however, which is fine by me since I work every Sunday). My only concern is that the money collected from fines does go to our operating budget and it basically covered the cost of us being open on Sundays. Still it is nice not to have a patron yell at me for a 10¢ fine. Any other thoughts on going fine free?
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Dec 7, 2021 20:21
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I had to disappoint a patron yesterday. He was looking for the audio-book version of the sixth Game of Thrones / Song of Ice and Fire novel.
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Dec 14, 2022 18:46
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So the other day my library got an inter-library loan from Harvard university. It was a 150-year-old book on naval architecture and it was HUGE. Here it is in the package it came in; Thing was 3'x3' or something. It was also very fragile so we asked the patron if he would just use it in the library, but he said he knew what he was getting into and had special equipment to use/scan/read the book. Edit: changed scar to scan.... The_Other fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Mar 23, 2023 |
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Mar 23, 2023 23:04
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Waffle! posted:A guy came in yesterday at a different branch I work at, saying he was told to take donations here. I looked in his bag and it was a PS 2 and a bunch of games! Figures. Some people get video games, my library gets a bunch of dirty, decades-old medical books that had probably been sitting in someones attic/basement;  These were found in the overnight drop when I emptied it on Sunday. 
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Oct 11, 2023 23:20
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So my library's copy of The Goetia: The Lesser Key of Solomon the King has gone missing. Somebody's trying to conjure demons and doesn't want anyone else to know .
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Dec 9, 2023 16:03
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 05:41 |
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So here's what some illiterate did this past Friday: 
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Mar 4, 2024 01:31
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