Our small library has missed out on the British roayalty I’m afraid. We do however have Elizabeth Taylor as a regular patron. She tries weekly to cash a two million dollar royalty check. We just tell her we don’t have that much on hand, she’ll have to take it to a bank.
I’ve learned to hone my reflexes after catching a Stephen King book, thrown by an anger patron, with the side of my head. I can now dodge books and videos with the best of them.
We’ve had 3 flashers in the last two years, a drunk groping female patrons and staff, two fist fights and parents who pull up and drop off children to young too take care of themsevles for the whole day.
I’m not in the business any more, though sometimes I miss it.
I used to work the circulation desk at the local library when I was in high school. One of my tasks was to lock up the bathrooms at night. Got a flasher in there, once (and, with the gestures he was making and the fact that I knocked twice, I didn’t just walk in on him while he was peeing).
I discreetly gestured for the security guard to come over. I felt kind of bad–I was pretty sure the guy was mentally ill, not just lewd.
True fact: the first time I got flashed–at age 13–was in the AV room of the public library. (Downtown, Main, Cincinnati-Hamilton County Library.) I was in search of a record, big ol’ vinyl thing, of Swan Lake, for music class. This pitiful old jerk (heh!) was slumped in a chair, fondling what looked for the world to me like giblets scavenged from a particularly emaciated turkey.
The librarian didn’t seem very alarmed, to my innnocent eyes.
That was before college, of course.
And well before actual library experience.
Then I became familiar–at a careful distance–with the twit who slithered around the stacks and study carrels on his belly with a hand mirror, in order to get a floor-eye view in case a woman in skirts happened by. (A patron (school counselor) matter of factly stepped on his wrist and broke a few bones.)
Then there was “Word Man”, who called–without fail, every day–a half hour before closing, asking for definitions of sexal terms. He was thwarted by droning readings from medical dictionaries.
And the Korean guy who was convinced Nietzche lived behind the button panel in the elevator. He just rode up and down, up and down, all day, conducting actually quite interesting conversations with with the floor buttons in a three-floor building. (“Genealogy? First floor, elevator on the left in the lobby, ask Nietzche.”)
That’s entirely beside the drunk City Attorney, the carnies, the wealthy bipolar dowager (“Call her son-the-doctor, she’s ripping up Cosmo again.”), the homeless guy heating up cans of baked beans with cans of sterno in the study carrels, and repeating answers to bar bets on the Reference line as the phone gets passed down the bar. This runs high for obscure sports stats.
Good times. I must be crazy for still enjoying it.
TVeblen, you have a book in your head.
BTW, after all these years I met my first Marian the Librarian the other night!
He’s still there. Or his protege, at least.
My old department is where Films & Recordings used to be, and we had the highest concentration flashers in the entire building. Something about the layout of the exits makes it attractive to the pervs.
Oh yes! The closing ritual. I once found a drunk passed out on the men’s room floor, pants down to his ankles. For added pleasure he had befouled himself. Unfortunately we are too small a library for a security guard, so I just called the police to come scrape him up.
I’ll add two of my personal favorites. The children too sick to go to school so their parents bring them to the library to vomit in the children’s section, and then cough, sneeze and drool on the video boxes before they hand them to us. And the porn fetishists. The guy who spends hours looking at tattooed penises, the guy who’s into naked elderly women, and the one you would not want to let any were near the Straight Dope goat, or any other livestock.
Yep, libraries are places for nutjobs as well as those looking for a quiet place to read.
Funny people here should mention that they have had to deal with relatives of Queen Elizabeth. Liz herself used to come into a library where I worked. Used to sit at empty tables and hold long conversations with her subjects.
As for my adventure, when I talked to the detective, he told me that the former patron says that I was "up in his face" and that he was swinging his arm, and hit me accidentally. The witnesses disagree with him, and it sure looked like a deliberate blow to me. The saga is ongoing.So, he was just swinging his arms around and your face got in the way? What were you thinking, getting your face in his way like that?
You shoulda gone all decimal on his ass, while screaming “Dewey Defeats Subhuman, asshole!” and bashing his face in with a drawer from the card catalog.
You didn’t tell us you were attacked by a six-year-old!
Daniel
Okay, you’ve convinced me. I am never turning in a book late again! :eek:
Card catalog drawer? Around these here parts (Fort Worth, Texas) our libraries have had their catalogs in the computer system for at least a dozen years. I don’t know what they did with the old card catalogs, or the old drawers, for that matter.
My neighborhood library has a uniformed guard (I believe that she’s a cop, but not sure) on duty whenever the library is open. She’s very nice and friendly, but firm with people who are abusing the library. I think that she adds a lot of value to the library. I certainly feel better about using it, knowing that she’s watching.
I bought one of ours, a old oak with sixty drawers. I’ve had it refinished and it looks great in my living room. The drawers are perfect for holding CDs and cassettes.
UNC’s main library is like this too - though whether it has anything to do with the local homeless population, I know not. I do know that you cannot get in through the street-side entrances - you have to go through the quad/Pit to the main entrance.
This situation got so bad in the town I used to live in that the city instituted a policy - children too young to be on their own, and kids still left in the building by closing were sent to CPS and the parents got to explain to them why their children were left unsupervised.
Sweetums, it sounds like your ‘patron’ may actually get in some actual real trouble - good on your employers, and your witnesses, for standing up for you!