Funny Requests from patrons II.

Though NOT a Librarian, I split this talk into another thread.
The old one was just taking too long to load.

Good work Guido, I was thinking of doing that myself.

Umm. Not sure what's going on here? There are still a few posts on the l.o.n.g thread, yet this one is marked as dormant. OMG, how long ago did I split it.

Guess I'll just have to say "Librarians know a lot about books, except how to read".

OK you can throw your shoes at me now :=)

Yet another data point showing that it should be possible to close a thread that has been continued.

Agreed!

Ok, reposting here. Not a funny request, but irony in the library. A returned item called The Savvy Girls Guide to Saving was returned late and accrued a $9.50 late fee.

Funny requests

I need a colour photograph of Jesus. No, not a picture of a painting, an actual photo.

And we've been asked for photos of angels and told that we are being difficult for not providing them.

Can you help me find a book please. I don't know the author or the title but I saw it here once.

Not an info request, but funny. Customer who couldn't pay her fines: do you need anything done, like maybe I can do your washing or clean your house to pay them off.

CookieCat23: We had a gentleman for the longest time who would bring black and white photos to the desk and ask to have them copied in color. He just didn't seem to get that we couldn't magically make the color appear.

I had a little boy come up to the desk last week, asking for "James and the Chocolate Factory" books. It was adorable. I asked if he was looking for James and the Giant Peach, or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He just wanted any Roald Dahl books.

Someone asked my supervisor yesterday if we had typewriters in the library.
There are one or two for staff use but nothing for patrons.

Artgirl64: We actually do have typewriters for patron use and you'd be surprised at how many people ask to use them. Of course, I pray they don't ask for help with them, because typewriters are before my time and I don't have a clue as to how they work.

Oh dear...they're easy! Really! Of course, I am almost 50 and have been using them for 35 years. You young 'uns don't know what you're missing! LOL

Here's a 2010 blog entry (Typists Need Not Apply) by Nicholas Basbanes, author of bibliophilic books like The Gentle Madness where he writes, nay laments, that a writers' colony in New York City has discontinued typewriters for those who prefer to write on them.

For my own part, I did use a typewriter in high school but I very quickly began using computers, such as the school's TRS-80s and my own VIC-20 (this was the early 80s, mind you). A Mac won in a raffle in college in 1985 and I haven't looked back. However, I would like to get an old typewriter of the type the author I study used. One of these days I shall do so.

James

#13--Ah, the TRASH-80, as we used to call it!

I gave away my typewriter years ago, but was able to get one from my friend's mother when she moved and downsized her possessions. Mostly I use it in my artwork (to type captions for paintings) and for mail art/mailing labels.

"Do all of your computers have Google, or only some of them?"

Ha! As a young 'un and a typewriter user, it's true...I don't know what I'm missing, but only because I'm not missing em! Of course, I'm on the archivist/special collections side of things, so probably an oddball anyway. ( ;

A lot of my personal library falls into that AND the museum where I am a volunteer curator is all hand written as the person who collected all the material up until his death in 66 couldn't afford ribbons for his typewriter!!! Shoe polish just didn't work!!!

#14 by artgirl64>

TRASH-80

Yes, we used that moniker as well when I was in high school (graduated 1985) and the song and lyrics for "Mr. Roboto" by Styx comes to mind. However, I didn't want to seem too disrespectful or flippant by mentioning it in this thread. We had Model I (keyboard, monitor, expansion unit, floppy drive, cassette drive were separate pieces), Model III (all in one, gray), and Model IV (all in one, white) units over the years I was there. For a time I was convinced that I wanted to own one of these. I ended up buying a VIC-20 with my savings money. It was limiting (3.5 kB of RAM and no long-term storage) but it encouraged me to be clever and conservative in my programming.

I took a typewriter keyboarding course (IBM Selectric) and before that I used our home electric typewriter to do term papers. One class had us use the Turabian citation format and footnotes. That was quite a challenge considering it was done on a typewriter and you didn't always know how long a footnote would be in type. I am glad to handle this sort of thing on a computer now (when they work).

These days I would one day like to own the model of typewriter that my favorite author had, a Smith-Premier No. 1. It had an unusual double keyboard with separate keys for upper and lower case. He tried to get used to the shift key years later but found he could not.

James

Sorry - covered by another post.

Oh, the Turabian citation format and footnotes.. brings back memories of my thesis and my typewriter. Typing it out correctly was harder than writing the thesis..

Can you look on the Facebook and see what people are saying about me?

>21 DanMat: I'm guessing that was asked by quite a young patron? (because older folks don't care nearly as much what people say about us).

There's a few times when I've had to explain to patrons about scams, for instance, that they didn't really win a free iPad.

One time a person needed help because they had received a "partial scholarship" to an "online university," but the page wasn't coming up. Turns out, the school was a website where you can pay to watch youtube videos about theology, not a real school, and they try to get money/credit card numbers by giving out these "partial scholarships."

This person was so bummed out.

22-

No, an older gentleman. I spend about a hour twice a week doing things for him. He tries to get that one in at the end as if it changes one week to another.

At the music library of a prestigious Ivy League university, probably in the 1980s:

A student wanted the CD of a piece of music. The librarian apologetically said that the CD was not in the library, but the student could listed to the same piece on an LP.

The horrified student said, "I don't have time to listen to an LP."

Maybe assuming that long-playing records took longer to play?

Either the angels weep, or they're laughing their heads off!

"You folks have changed the internet somehow, and I need to know how to work it."

Wait, you folks, like the librarians? Did the patron mean the browser? I've gotten that before. (I can't find my browser, I need my IEEEEEE..... :))

“Do you have any books on the psychology of the male mind?” This wouldn't have been so unusual except it was a fourth grade girl asking in our elementary school library.

>27 DanieXJ: I'm sure he meant he couldn't find the browser, or it didn't immediately come up with Google as the home page, so he was lost. The funny thing is, the same guy said nearly the same thing about a month ago.

I was just amused by how he said it, as though we as librarians had "changed" the entire internet just to confuse and aggravate him. Oh, to have that kind of power. ;)

The other night a woman came up to the children's desk 5 minutes before closing. She said, "I need 35 books for 4th graders."

I was about to give her my best stink eye and tell her it was 8:55 PM and if she needed 35 of anything she should have come in 35 minutes ago, but she quickly added "But it doesn't matter what they are!"

I sprang into action and filled a basket with 35 books from the shelf that were at the 4th grade level and had her out of there by 8:59! I found them all with authors' names A-D too.

Happened just now:

Daughter needs book Starters from a reading list.

Mom: "Look at this girl on the cover! She looks freaky! She has one blue eye and one brown eye! Do I really want my daughter reading this?"



Later, same mom: "She also needs this one called 'Baby.' But I don't think she's old enough to learn about babies!"

The book was about a girl named Baby whose foster parents raise sled dogs.

>31 weener: There are so many questions I have, mostly rhetorical. Like, what does the mother think the two different colored eyes betokens? Possession by the devil? How old is this child? What things about babies is the daughter not old enough to know? Presumably how they are made?

Thank you all. What a great laugh.

>32 ejj1955: The daughter was maybe 12. And the mom had a stack of seriously 100+ pages she had printed off of books - just titles, no authors or descriptions - that were in her daughter's AR/lexile level. Such a pain.

My favorite involves a teacher rather than a librarian, but I hope you'll bear with me. She assigned her class The French Broad for North Carolina reading. The next day she received a complaint note from a parent who clearly hadn't read the back cover. The mother complained about her assigning such a misogynistic book. She had to figure out how to politely explain that the title referred to the French Broad River.

> 35 As a collector and reader of the 'Rivers of America' series that has to be the most 'exciting' piece of information (?) I have ever heard about the series. Sounds like an adult version of a kindergarten joke!

Here's a new one, courtesy of one of my coworkers: A woman was looking for the "second or third book" in the Hunger Games series: "To Kill a Mockingjay."

LOL!

A joke from AHS-Wolfy in the Green Dragon group:

The wife was nagging me for ages to put a shelf up in the front room, but as I am shit at DIY I thought that I should get some advice. So I went to the library and asked the woman there, " do you have any books on shelves?".
She just laughed at me.

Our library has 3 sections for DVD's - children, YA and adult. Patron asks where are our 'Adult' DVD's are, he was expecting an R18 section, like we have a room behind a curtain! I had to politely explain that the Adult DVD sign was referring to just grown-up movies, which cost more to borrow than CYA ones.

I don't know though, maybe there's the potential for a new service here. We're always looking to increase borrowers and generate revenue...

>40 Heatherfleur:, My local library growing up used to advertise "adult library services" on their promotional bookmarks. Those of us in middle school found it highly amusing, but I'm not sure that's the kind of publicity they were looking for.

>41 inge87:, I am the Adult Services Coordinator at my library, and my boyfriend thinks it's the funniest title ever.

>42 redpersephone:: But does he get jealous? Just askin'

Not really a request, but I was explaining to a patron how to find a book today in:

Me: "So you'll need the call number..."
Them: "I have to call a number?" *pulling out phone*

To be fair, I guess it is a confusing term...

Me to every elementary class when teaching them to find books on the shelf: "This is the spine label. The information on the spine label is the call number. We call it a call number even if there isn't a a number."
So far no student has gotten it confused with a phone number.

>KCGordon - Hahaha!! That sounds so interesting that I may just have to find that book and read it - especially since the French Broad is such a beautiful river!

Twenty-ish year-old patron comes up to the reference desk.

Patron: "Where are the books on tography?"
Me: "Pardon?"
Patron: "Books about tography?"
Me (preparing to google): "What is that?"
Patron: "You know, taking photos?"
Me (internally): ohhhhhhhh

Dad and 7- or 8-year old son come up to the circulation desk.

Dad: I'm sorry, son, but we can't check anything out today: We forgot your mom's library card.
Son (enthusiastically): That's okay, I know they take VISA!

When I was a youngster one could get a library card as soon as we could write our name in ink.

~~Wondering what rules are now.

Same here. You had to write your full name by yourself, and your parent or guardian had to say to the librarian that you lived in the city limits.

I don't know what the "rules" were when I was a kid, I'm pretty sure I personally had nothing to do with getting it, though, but I think I was between 5-8 or so when I got mine. I know the 2 yr old twins I nannyed for several years back already had theirs and they certainly couldn't write. I'm pretty sure where I'm from parents can simply request cards for any child at any time. It's the parent who's responsible for it regardless, and why fill up their acct with a bunch of picture books? lol.

I am reminded of Rufus M. by Eleanor Estes. I read it long (long) ago, and the only thing I remember is that Rufus had to be able to write his name in order to get a library card - and how hard he worked to learn.

That episode must have made quite an impression on me. I couldn't have been more than 9 at the time. More than 50 year-old memory.

>artgirl 64: I recently heard this from a library-school student (using my lib'y to access legal materials), I'm guessing he got this from one of his classes: A firm in Germany, concerned about online security, etc., has gone back to using typewriters.

>53 bks1953: He may have been referring to a story that ran during July in The Independent; see also a slightly earlier piece in Der Spiegel.

I hope they're equipping these things with fabric ribbons!

>librorumamans: Thank you so very much for the link, that's got to be it! And re ribbons, I hope so too!

I work in an academic library, so it's always an interesting time when school starts back in the fall and we have hundreds of freshmen flooding in. One day last week, I noticed a young man walking around the circulation desk and heading back towards our 3 microfilm readers. Once he got close enough to see them, I saw this look of confused horror cross his face, an he threw his arms in the air. I asked, "Can I help you find anything?," and he said "Yeah, I'm just looking for a computer with Word on it that can print." He totally thought our computers were dinosaurs from the '80s.

In another situation, a boy asks if we have a particular play. I looked up the title and told him we actually have several different copies, some in anthologies and some stand alone books, and which would he prefer? He looked desperately at his course syllabus and said, "Can you just look it up by my class and see which one we're supposed to use?"

>bks1953

The 'German firm' is clearly innocent of the knowledge that typewriters can sometimes be bugged. At risk of imprisonment in the Tower of London and subsequent decapitation I here admit to buying (and reading) Peter Wright's Spy Catcher when it appeared in the 1980s ans was banned in the UK. In this memoir, Wright admits to bugging a (probably old) typewriter in the London French Embassy in the early Cold War, by detecting differences in the 'clacking' sound of the different keys, using the infamous 'microwave cavity' microphones in use then.

Ah ... those were the pre-digital days!

>53 bks1953:

All I can think about now is the Agents of SHIELD episode where they discover their efforts to hack the enemy are failing because everything is in hard copy. And then they steal a filing cabinet:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/moviesandtv/tvrecaps/agentsofshiel...

"Get ready for a large file transfer!" -- Agent Coulson, to his on-staff tech support on the ground, before pushing an entire file cabinet out of an office building window.

>58 timepiece:

Loved that scene!

An older woman (clearly here on vacation from warmer/wealthier climes) came up to the circ desk the other day.

Woman: Is your wifi working?
Me: As far as I know. Are you having trouble connecting?
Woman: My husband can't get on.
Me: Well I can take a look. *start to come around the end of the desk to find said husband*
Woman: Oh, he's in the car. *gestures*
Me: Umm...it only works within the library...
Woman: He has the top down!

Too funny!

>58 timepiece: There's an episode of Leverage like that. They are trying to steal some audio recordings from the government, thinking that all they need to do is get into the storage room, plug in a flash drive, download what they need, and get out. Only they get to the storage room and find boxes and boxes of cassette tapes instead of servers.

Okay, I don't usually think I have poor hearing, but today I could have sworn a kid asked me, "Do you have The Big Book of Pussycats?"

What he actually said was, "Do you have the third book of Percy Jackson?"

"Percy Jackson" is definitely very hard to pronounce if you have a lisp, so I'm sure I've heard a version of "Pussycats" before! :)

Not so much a funny request when you think about it: "Is Stephen King fiction or non-fiction?" from a full-grown adult who often uses the library computers. Doesn't this mean we should figure out some other way of categorizing books, especially since there is fiction within the non-fiction anyway?

Not necessarily a question, but I floored two students yesterday when I shared that I played Skyrim, an RPG. "Mrs. C! You play Skyrim!?!" They did not expect their gray-haired librarian to wield two-handed weapons and prowl around dungeons. We shared information about special weapons and skills.

>65 redpersephone: Well, he has some non-fiction works. So....

>66 mamzel:

Excellent! You've shaken their assumptions to the core!

>66 mamzel: Love it!

>67 lesmel: My thoughts exactly. He wrote the book On Writing and that memoir about being a Red Sox fan that he did with Stewart O'Nan, Faithful. Granted, that's not what most patrons are thinking of when they say "Stephen King," but still . . .

I also shared with them that I have been gaming since Zork I which had no graphics at all - all text - and was played before their parents even thought about having the twinkle in their eyes.

>67 lesmel: I thought of that too, but when asked they were looking for Pet Sematery and Salem's Lot.

>70 mamzel: You are surely a Cool Librarian in their eyes now! :)

>71 redpersephone: Yeah, let's HOPE those are fiction.

>73 lesmel: LOL!

An 11 year-old student looked at my while we were all away on an over-night residential (school bonding) trip and asked 'So, are you our librarian?'. Me: 'Yep, I sure am'. Slight pause and then she tilts her head to the side and says: 'Miss, can you do the splits?'

I love my job and the kids always make me laugh. However, does anyone else get asked what time it is a lot? I sit with a clock right behind me, but I bite my tongue and tell them in the nicest tone of voice possible. Once on a Friday evening after a long week a student also asked me why I wanted to go home!! I didn't know what to say to that one!

>75 loubrarian: 'Miss, can you do the splits

So, can you? :)

There's a special-needs kid that comes to the children's section on weeknights who always talks to me because he likes my blue glasses. The other day I was wearing black glasses, he asked why, I explained that I have five pairs because I lived in Korea where they are very cheap. He asked if I had any orange glasses, and I actually do. I promised him I would wear them this Tuesday. I even put a reminder in my phone.

"If a chandelier fell on a person, what would you do?" Um, call 911?

"Has this building ever been destroyed by a tornado?" It's still here, right?

"Will it ever be destroyed by a tornado?" If I could answer that, I'd be making big bucks at the Weather Channel. Or Vegas.

"Could you cut someone's head off with the big paper cutter?" No. Just no. (But to be fair, it's actually a cardboard cutter and has a 5-foot blade.)

"Why does the wall say Bacon?" Because that wall is inscribed with the names of historians, philosophers, and other people of cultural and historical significance, and Francis Bacon was an English philosopher.

"Oh. I thought it was because bacon is good." Well, that too.

"Can we ride the old elevator?" No, because it was installed in the 1930s, it holds maybe three people, and I am not calling your mother to tell her you won't be home on time because you're stuck in an elevator.

"Can we jump off the balcony?" No. It's two stories down to a marble floor, and I also don't want to have to call your mother explaining why you're on your way to the emergency room.

In case it's not obvious, we're giving tours of our historic building to local elementary school students. The kids are fairly well-behaved and a lot of fun, but there is *no* brain-to-mouth filter.

>78 casvelyn:

Thanks for the smile!

Nope! It wasn't part of my ILM course! :)

Classic moment several years ago in our small town library, as reported by my colleague - young woman asks for a book on motivation. Colleague starts doing a catalogue search. Patron realises this may take more than sixty seconds, says 'Oh, nah, can't be bothered...'

We also once had a phone call from a library in a town on the other side of a mountain range from us, asking us if our local mountain was still in situ. Serious inquiry from one of their patrons. No context. No earthquakes. Would LOVE to know what was behind that one...

How nice of them to share a chuckle with you!

Patron, "I'm buying a cowboy hat. Would anyone have a tape measure?"
Me, "I can give you string and a yard stick."

moments later....

Patron, "Do you think you could..."
Me, "no, I will not measure your head."

Not in my library, but a friend told me about a male teacher coming in to her library, looking at the display for Women's History Month and asking her (in all seriousness) when Men's History Month was.

*head slap*

I explain to the college student that the book is on the 3rd floor shelves. She asks, earnestly: "but if the book is on the 3rd floor, then how do I download it?"

> 86

American Millennials are among the world's least skilled

http://fortune.com/2015/03/10/american-millennials-are-among-the-worlds-least-sk....

Even the best-educated Millennials stateside couldn’t compete with their counterparts in Japan, Finland, South Korea, Belgium, Sweden, or elsewhere. With a master’s degree, for example, Americans scored higher in numeracy than peers in just three countries: Ireland, Poland, and Spain. Altogether, the top U.S. Gen Yers, in the 90th percentile, “scored lower than their counterparts in 15 countries,” the report notes, “and only scored higher than their peers in Spain.”

>87 Phlegethon99: I haven't read the article, and won't because I firm believer there is more to living and working in this world than testable book smarts.

But... just pointing out. Generation Y and the Millennials are two very, very distinct and different groups.

>86 Nycticebus: Sounds to me more like the kid was expecting an ebook (perhaps her Boomer professor told her that it would be downloadable) and was confronted with a physical book, not that she was trying to figure out who to climb stairs....

>88 DanieXJ: Aren't Gen Y and Millennials were the same: the generation after Gen X. Everything I've read uses Gen Y and Millennials interchangeably...or only uses "millennials."

Gen Y was the generation after X, the Millenials are the generation after that.

>90 jjwilson61: Not according to William Strauss and Neil Howe (the people the coined Millenials) and Ad Age (the company that coined Gen Y).

"No one knows who will name the next generation," says Neil Howe, who, along with his deceased co-author and business partner, William Strauss, is widely credited with naming the Millennials, a generation he figures spans from about 1982 to 2004. (http://usat.ly/1FAqbE4)

OK, if you want to use the Strauss/Howe names then the 13er's were the generation after the Boomers, and then came the Millennials. That article is what to call the generation after the Millennials.

So, have any patrons had any unique requests like, "can I be the one to name the next generation?"

In the last month I've been asked "What's this?" by a young girl holding up a page with a picture of an arm and a rolled up t-shirt sleeve. It looked like a leg and a bottom...I think she knew what she was doing there, but thankfully another young girl shouted out "an elbow"....
I had someone come along to book group (a bit late) take off their shoes and put on fluffy pink slippers. Hey, at least I know they feel 'at home' in the library.
And finally, my favourite..."Do I smell of onions?" Me: "Well, I don't think so, but I'm not going to come around to the other side of the desk to sniff you".

I'm a K-8 librarian.
Here are some questions from the past week:

"Where is your cabbage section?" (I'm now curious if there are enough books on cabbages to warrant the existence of a cabbage section)

"How much does this cost?" (new sixth grade student apparently didn't have a library at his old school and thought we were a book store).

"How long did it take you to write all these?" (second grader gesturing to the entire library collection)

Yep, all good questions. I love the way kids minds work.

You don't have a cabbage section?

http://www.librarything.com/search.php?search=cabbage&searchtype=work&se...

Excellent! Every library should have a cabbage section. I'm going to suggest it at the staff meeting tomorrow...

I'm sure every librarian and bookstore clerk has gotten this one:

"Where are the good books?"

I kinda want to reply "I save those for myself."

>benuathanasia: I've definitely gotten that question, but once I was actually asked, "Do you have any books?" when I worked at a public library. When I gave my puzzled expression and swept my hand across the room, indicating all the books visible on the shelves, she rolled her eyes and said, "I mean GOOD books." I later realized she really meant EASY books as she was doing research and wanted something simple to get it done fast. lol

When I managed a bookstore with a specialty of old children's books full-time in the 1990s, we often played the "name that book" game as people tried to describe a book they recalled but did not have sufficient information such as title or author. If left to their own method of description, this often included the color of the cover which can be a help at times even though there are not listings of children's books with green covers, for example.

If I was in a playful mood, when someone said that the book they remembered was "red," I would reply that it was good since if a book was not "read," it was unlikely to be remembered. Some were quick enough to catch this.

The reference to looking for the "good" books made me think of this.

James

Today a kindergartner kept asking for "Hannah Lion"--I thought maybe it was a book...finally figured out she was saying "Hanitizer"...."hand sanitizer"...Actually, I think "Hanitizer" is a great word.

>103 theretiredlibrarian:
In the Urban Dictionary since 2006.

I'll be darned! It still sounded like "Hannah Lion" to me!

Dear librarian: New York Public Library's quirkiest inquiries

A cache of cards recovered from the New York Public library’s archive is being published online, revealing the many roles the librarian was expected to play in the days before the internet

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/28/librarian-new-york-public-librarys-...

>103 theretiredlibrarian: I love it when kids mix up words accidentally, and it comes out better than the original. My six year old has a few, but the only one I can remember right now is 'beetfruit' instead of 'beetroot'. I know it's not technically a fruit - but anything that'll help those veggies go down!

I was helping two patrons use a scanner in my library's computer lab a few months ago. They had a cell phone with a cracked screen and were absolutely convinced that the shape of the scratches formed an image of Jesus. They were scanning the cell phone so they could put the image on their website and kept talking about how famous they were going to be and how much money they were going to bring to their church because Jesus's image had appeared in the cracks on their phone. They also wanted to know my opinion about this "miracle." I politely told them that I wasn't religious, so I wasn't sure what their discovery would mean for the Christian faith. The scratches didn't appear in the shape of anything to me. It just looked like a broken phone.

An elderly homeless patron at an academic library where I used to work is convinced that he is the emperor of China. The staff privately refer to him as such. He would come into the library periodically and talk at whomever happened to be at the reference desk about his claim to the throne and how the Chinese embassy was sure to recognize him soon. He would also ask about how he could meet girls on campus to date. I eventually found out through talking to him that he researched his genealogy many years ago and found that a distant ancestor of his was emperor of China during the Tang dynasty. He didn't seem to understand how common it is to find royal ancestry when researching one's genealogy or the fact that China was no longer a monarchy and even if it was that the Tang Dynasty had not been in power for about 1,000 years.

I got asked a question today that could make this list. A patron asked for a "white book that's shaped like a square and has a guy wearing a fur hat with a pipe" on the cover and apparently has something to do with fencing. The patron remembered seeing it in the best seller fiction section several months ago. We eventually found a book with a white cover called "Encyclopedia of the Sword," which the patron said was the book that he wanted. It had a picture of a sword on the cover and no guy with a pipe/fur hat. It was in reference non-fiction and not best seller fiction where he remembered seeing it.

But now everybody will want to read it, and buy copies for friends~~~ VOILA!! A best seller has been born!

Our teaching coach came in on Friday and asked for something very technical and hard to read. Unfortunately we had just completed a major overhaul of our reference and had removed anything we thought was too technical (and outdated) for our teens. I ended up downloading an Old English version of the Prologue of The Cantebury Tales with a handy translation included. It was to help (or remind) teachers what it was like to struggle reading and deriving meaning from a text. I had gotten that feeling and realization recently while reading Neal Stephenson but we didn't have any of his books in this library.

112 - That reminded me of this:

My mother and I work in the same school. I teach library and technology; she teaches fourth grade. One day, I notice the book I had been reading (Plato's Republic) is missing from my office. I don't think anything of it and assume I had just forgotten to bring it in that day. Later on, I head to her classroom to have lunch with her, but arrive a few minutes early - just in time to hear her reading an excerpt from Republic to the class. Lo and behold, she had swiped it from me because she couldn't find a "clear cut," "too difficult" book to demonstrate to her students the concept of "just right" books.

I had a patron yesterday who seemed really concerned about how violence might break out in Syria and that if this occurs it could cause gas prices to go up in the United States. I told him that Syria has been in a chaotic civil war for the past several years. He seemed unaware that there was already a conflict there.

>114 ARKdeEREH: Not to mention that while Syria does indeed produce oil, it is country 68 on the list. The USA is first, producing more than 400 times as much. It isn't that important.

In reply to libraian, on Sept 3, about kids mixing up words:
My daughter called mushrooms mushworms and it became a family word to this day. We love mushworms!

A teenage patron was looking for a recommendation for a recent YA fantasy novel.

Me: How about this one, The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey? Here's the summary, "A girl who's adopted and raised by a race of creatures with feathers for hair and magic in their veins becomes involved in an ancient war and a centuries-old love, discovering startling truths about the world she lives in."

Patron: Ugh, feathers for hair? I don't know, I think that's just too weird. If she was raised by gryphons, maybe, but creatures with feathers for hair? That's just bizarre.

Me: Whatever.

>117 weener: Everyone has their line, apparently. lol

I had a patron the other day who called asking for the number for Buckingham Palace (we are in the States) and then she wanted me to call it for her. When I told her that wasn't something I could do for her, she had the bright idea of trying to call it collect.

>117 weener: I have some bad news for that patron about a class of animals called birds.

I've just started a blog as a bit of stress relief for me and today I collected my funny library memories together. It's here if you'd like to read it: http://wp.me/p7fQU7-M
In the middle of the situation I sometimes find these absurd events frustrating, but looking back on them they make me chuckle. Hope they make you laugh too.

Not a request, but a conversation today with a 1st grader. Both of her books have been returned with the barcode and spine labels peeled off. One book is about reindeer and is brand new, the other is about earthworms.
Me: A., what happened to these books?
Her: (deer in the headlights look, but you can tell she's trying to come up with something)
Me: Did you peel off these labels?
Her: (still nothing, obviously trying to think of something and not to cry)
Me: I need to know why you peeled off the labels.
Her: I read the books.
Me: I know you read the books. But I need to know why you took off the labels.
Her: I was reading the worm book, and it gave me a headache.

"Both of her books have been returned with the barcode and spine labels peeled off."
GAHHHHHHHHHH!!! This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine.

I had a student who wanted a theory and criticism book by Kate Winslet. He insisted it was Kate Winslet no matter what we said. He refused it was a Nisbet and not a Winslet.

Highlights of academic library life:

"I need the textbook with the blue cover. No I don't know my professors name. No I don't know which class. It's just the one with the blue cover! How hard can it be to find that!"

First week of the semester highlights from freshman:
"Whoa...so like..we can just hang out and read books in here?"
"Am I allowed to sit in this building?"
"How often do you squish people in those?" (points at rolling stacks)

>125 MirandaDube: MirandaDube: I can understand if a student can't remember the prof's name the first week of classes, but I am always amazed how every semester there are at least two or three students coming in right before Finals and they STILL don't know the prof's name or the course name or number.

I've worked in the same, relatively small subject library for almost 25 years now. Sometimes the color of a book can be a very useful bit of information for a patron to give me. When one of our popular books Mother's House needed to be rebound, it took me about three years to remember that it was no longer a pink book, but green.

>125 MirandaDube:
>126 manatree:

I've been through the same for 10 years working in a small academic library. I considered migrating our books from LC system to color coding so students will always know where the blue or red books are LOL

Not a request, but an overheard conversation in school today:
PreK A: What's that smell?
PreK B: It's the LIBRARY!
Prek C: It's the books!

Actually, we had a leak and I think it was wet carpet, but still...

Some of the most unusual questions from the past couple years:

1.) A patron had an elaborate conspiracy theory about how Jeff Bezos from Amazon had stolen nuclear bombs from a sunken submarine called the Kursk and used these to attack Japan. In her mind the nuclear plant meltdown that occurred in Japan a few years ago was not triggered by a tsunami, but by Amazon's CEO using these stolen nuclear bombs to attack Japan. According to the patron, Bezos did this as a cover so that he could send his own private army into Japan to abduct Japanese children and then use them as slave labor on Neptune. The patron mixed up Bezos and Elon Musk and thought that Space X was Bezos's company and talked about how Space X was only in "the Texas panhandle of all places" because it was a remote area where no one would be able to observe the kidnapped Japanese children being loaded onto spaceships before being sent to Neptune. The patron basically talked at me about this while I was at the reference desk. At first I thought that she was telling me about the plot to a book or that this was a story that she made up, but it turned out that she really believed everything that she told me. She said that she learned this information from what she called "reliable news sources" and that any media source that denied that her version of events was true or that didn't mention it at all was fake and had been paid off by Bezos.

2.) The same patron came back on another day and bragged about how her adult son had been involuntarily committed to a mental institution in Florida. The patron seemed to view this as a great source of pride.

3.) The library has a small aquarium on the branch manager's desk with some fish in it. A little girl who came into the library on a class visit from a preschool asked if she could take the fish out of the tank and play with them. We explained that the fish needed to stay underwater or they would die. She kept asking us follow-up questions about why this was so and also told us that she used to have pet fish at home and that she played with them but that they all died. When it finally became clear to her that we were not going to bend our rules and let her remove the fish from the tank, the little girl asked us if she could climb inside the aquarium and play with the fish that way. There were two distinctly different kinds of fish in the tank. Most of the fish were very small, but there was one of an obviously different species that was much larger. The girl asked if the larger fish was bigger because it was pregnant. When we said no, she asked us why it wasn't pregnant.

4.) A patron called and asked if he could rent mules in the library. He seemed surprised that we did not offer this service.

5.) A patron called and said that she worked for Child Protective Services and was trying to make sure that their address list was current. She asked if we were still using the same building for the library as we were the previous year. I said yes. The patron then asked if the library building was still in the same place as it had been last year. I can understand about the first part because it is possible for a library to change locations, as in to get a new building. What I don't understand is why the patron thought that the library building itself would be in a different place. It's not like it got up and walked away!

6.) A patron yesterday tried to use a deposit ticket from a bank to pay for his library fees. He insisted that it was a check and asked to speak with my supervisor when I told him that it wasn't a check. My supervisor confirmed that it was a deposit ticket that should be used for telling a bank how much money he would be depositing with them and can not in fact be used as a form of payment and is definitely not a check.

7.) A patron called and said that he lived in another state and that he had heard that there was a nudist colony a few hundred miles away from my library. He said that he wanted to visit it because the women there were "heathens" and he wanted to convert them to Christianity. He rambled on for a while about the religious justifications of converting nudist women and that how nudist men were "tainted" and hence were beyond his ability to spiritually save. I asked him if he had a question. He told me that he wanted the contact information for the library that was closest to the nudist colony. He didn't know where the nudist colony was located other than the county and I had never heard of the nudist colony before and could not find anything about it. I suggested that he call the larger regional library for that county and that perhaps they would know. The patron then said that the people in the large regional library were unfit as sources of information because just like the nudist men, they were "tainted" by being in a city. He wanted information from a "pure" rural library instead. Since he didn't know which town the nudist colony was in, I eventually just gave him the phone number for a random small library in a rural part of that county. I later learned from a coworker that there actually was a small "naturist" community a few miles from the town that I had randomly selected.

8.) A patron called and asked "How do chickens make chickens?" She said that she and her friend had different opinions and she wanted me to settle the debate. At first I thought that they were unsure if chickens laid eggs or had live births, but it soon became clear that the patron was under the impression that chickens were born as a result of immaculate conception and that roosters had no function other than to serve as alarm clocks. I explained that chickens reproduce sexually just like other animals. The patron seemed amazed that her friend was correct.

9.) We received an email question from a patron who said that her sister had been in a fender bender while backing out of her driveway. She wanted the library to pay for the repairs to her sister's car.

10.) During the primary season for the 2016 election a patron asked me: "So, who is our next president going to be?" This was very early into the primaries, long before it had become clear who was going to win either the Democratic or Republican nominations. I told the patron who had won the most recent primaries for each party, but that wasn't he wanted. He thought that I would somehow know exactly who was going to win the general election.

11.) A coworker told me that a patron asked him for a photo of Jesus. The patron did not want a picture, such as a drawing or a painting. The patron insisted on an actual photo, apparently as a means of proving or disproving Jesus's ethnicity. According to my coworker, the patron did not seem to understand that it wasn't possible to have a photo of someone who died 1,800 years or so before cameras were invented!

12.) A patron came up to me while I was at the computer help desk and said that she was a federal agent from border patrol and that this entitled her to just take books from the library without checking them out. I told her that she needed to get a library card just like anyone else. She put a badge on the counter and insisted that this somehow proved that she was entitled to special treatment. Apparently she was sent to me by staff at the circulation desk who wanted a librarian to handle it. She thought that I would give a different answer than the library assistants at circulation. Nope!

13.) We get numerous complaints from patrons who think that there is something wrong with our library's Internet because the default homepage on our computers is different from the ones that they have at home. The default homepage is the library website. The patrons will say something to the effect of: "It keeps bringing up this thing and not the Internet!" They seem amazed that they have to actually type the web address that they want to visit at the top of the screen in order to get there. A similar issue was when a patron thought that something was wrong with our computers because the temporary guest pass number that we gave him to use to login to our computers (because he forgot his library card at home) would not also work as a password to login to his personal email account.

14.) A patron told me that he checked out a book from the library in the 1980s. He did not remember what it was called, what it was about, or any other information that could be used to find it. He did not even remember what year he had checked it out, just the decade. The patron thought that since he checked it out from the library we must surely have a record of what he checked out. He seemed amazed that we do not keep a record of what our patrons borrowed over three decades ago!

15.) A patron came up to the reference desk and said "Where is the library?" I told him that we were in the library. He didn't seem to accept this and kept saying that he was trying to find the library and wanted me to tell him where it was. We were right next to some big displays of books and there was a line of people across from us checking out books at the circulation desk.

16.) One of my co-workers told me that while he was working at the reference desk a patron asked him to renew her pet license for her dog and became very upset when he said that he couldn't do that for her and that the library did not renew pet licenses. We found out later that she thought the library was city hall. Apparently all the signs and book displays weren't enough of a hint.

>129 ARKdeEREH:

RE: #9 - did she say why she thought the library should pay for the repairs?

>130 lilithcat: Pretty obvious to me that whilst backing out of drive to go in search of last year's library site the sister was so still so distraught by library's refusal to provide an archive photograph of a prophet/son of God that she failed to notice an oncoming car driven by someone going to Taco Bell to renew her dog license after also having been denied satisfaction by the librarians. Hence, liability was the library's. Duh.

>129 ARKdeEREH: I've added this post to 'favorites'. Do you mind my asking where you live?

Yes, I was curious about >129 ARKdeEREH:'s location too. I'd like to be able to avoid it. Yikes!

>129 ARKdeEREH: ... this could be my library (the photo of Jesus, oh man like twice a year) except we have a fake aquarium on the kids desk that kids do not believe is full of fake fish

>129 ARKdeEREH:
Regarding #4 - They must be confused about what *exactly* a biblioburro is...

>ARKdeEREH:

Regarding #4 - My first thought would have been the Isokon Penguin Donkeys, originally designed by Ergon Riss in 1939.

https://isokonplus.com/furniture/isokon-penguin-donkey

>129 ARKdeEREH: 16- I worked in a public library that was also a city council service centre, as we call them, and I did have to issue dog licenses, sell recycling bins, accept rates payments (property tax), as well as library work, as it was all the same desk.

>131 bluepiano: I live in Hawaii now, but before that I lived in Texas. Questions 11 and 12 on my list were asked in Texas and variations of question 13 got asked in both states. The rest of the questions were asked in Hawaii.

>134 benuathanasia: There is a popular tourist attraction in my state where people rent mules so that they can ride them down a steep trail to a historical village. Apparently the patron was confused about where to rent the mules. Obviously patrons cannot rent animals in a library! I told the patron that the mules could be rented from a specific company and gave him that company's contact information. The patron seemed surprised that he needed to rent the mules from a private tour company and not from the library.

A related book: Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops.

A friend pointed me to this as well: I work at a public library.

I'm going to go look for it now. ;)

Wishlisted!

"Do you have any Diarrhea of a Wimpy Kid?"

You're like, "I hope not!"

A patron called and asked "Who is Joe Biden? I heard that he's running for some sort of public office." This was on July 28, 2020 (97 days before the presidential election of Donald Trump versus Joe Biden).

I'm thinking that this re-opening time is going to have some 'funny' stuff that distresses a lot of librarians. (I'm currently waiting for the first question about how to 'get the russian vaccine' or something along those lines *sigh*