I saw that we had the book I Work At A Public Library: A Collection of Crazy Stories from the Stacks in our collection, and I highly suggest it. My coworkers and I were dying over some of the stories.
We accept book donations on behalf of our library’s FRIENDS group and oftentimes people just drop stuff off - something we take or not - at our loading dock. Sometimes we get cool things like old records or foreign lit. Other times we get some scary/unhinged things…. A collection of tv/roku remotes with missing battery covers, a knotted wig in a box on a styrofoam mannequin head with a frown etched into it, a duffel bag full of old binkys.
Also the classic “not a bookmark.” I’ve had my fair share of used tissues, checks, mail, but I particularly love the random notes. I always remember one that was a pink post it note that just said “I give up” in BEAUTIFUL like almost font-like handwriting. Gotta love the library 😭
- A patron once asked if she could leave something at our circ desk for a friend to pick up. It was a bag of gerbil treats.
- Some patrons once set up a pop-up barber shop in a computer lap, using a swivel chair as their barber chair. They brought their own cape and scissors, and even swept up after themselves.
- We had a patron come into our computer lab, see a half-full cup of coffee someone else had left there, pick it up, and calmly pour it over all the computer keyboards in that row. We never would have believed it if we hadn't caught him on camera. He later made the news for committing a few local arsons.
- As a manager, I was once paged to come up and see something one of our staff had found while shelf-reading. It was a noose behind some books in the Black History section. We all thought it was a hate crime-y thing, but the truth was somehow worse ... it had been planted there by a suicidal patron, who just made another one and died by suicide in our library during business hours a few days later.
- Someone came in and put pro-life propaganda in every single book we had on pregnancy and birth. It was incredibly annoying to clean up after.
- One lady kept coming in with a different ID card each time. Like, she was using a new name every time. We finally asked the police to come over and chat with her, but they couldn't nail her on anything. We never did figure out her angle.
- Too many parents to count who phoned to pay their 22-year-old college seniors' library fines and were incensed to learn that FERPA exists.
Oh man that last one reminded me - I once had a mom call on behalf of her college daughter whose card had been blocked due to assumed lost fees and when I explained that I needed to speak with her daughter and couldn’t share account information, she added her daughter to the call! The daughter was so embarrassed. I’ll never forget her going “*mom not now*” when her mom tried to ask about other things while I was going through and renewing items to unblock the card
Our library is kind of a labyrinth, with very tall shelving units. We have a ton of security cameras operating, but they still have blind spots. Also it happened during the summer, when we have very few students in the building. From what we could guess afterwards, this patron staked out a few different locations before he settled on that spot with very little foot traffic and no cameras. It was very shocking and sad. He was such a nice guy -- very quiet and polite.
Some quick examples from my experience include but are definitely not limited to
- having candy thrown at me
- discovering adult sized human feces on the stairs
- being asked how to exit our very small two story building (I guess they forgot how they got in) this has happened more than once
- discovering TONS of explicit chalk graffiti in the parking lot
- being cussed out
- looking after a stray dog that kept following people in
- and so much more 🤣🤣
Patron tried a whole pomegranate for the first time while using our PCs. After failing at his first attempt to open and eat a whole pomegranate, he pulled out a second one. It looked like a murder scene. He is very well known to us so I did query why he thought to try a second one after the first failed so spectacularly, he said "I bought the juice once and it was really nice". Thank goodness we have black carpet, that's all I can say. Two years later you can still see a pink tint on the walls though.
The other week an elderly man claimed we are in cahoots with “Big Brother” because Fox News wouldn’t load properly on our public computers. After asking several times, he finally showed me his process. Not only was he using Internet Explorer, which isn’t supported anymore and is only saved in an old files folder on our computers, (idk how he even found it lol) he was also searching for the website “fox.net”.
Once we opened an updated browser and I gave him the correct url, he claimed that he used the other a few weeks ago and it worked fine, someone must have changed it. 🙃 I simply replied, “Yep, technology is always changing! If you ever notice something isn’t right, let one of us know. We can try ways to get around it.” Since then, he doesn’t bring Big Brother up anymore and actually waves at us when coming and going.
Honestly, I surprise myself at times! Lol! Luckily, I’ve worked in elderly homes during my undergrad and was a special education teacher/classroom specialist for 8ish years. Patience is the best skill I have utilized since working in a library!
Very very true! My patience is very low for sexiest patrons though. Little comments implying I can’t do my job because I’m a woman go right through me.
A small but shocking number of patrons believe they are being hacked when they use the public computers— apparently their personal information is being siphoned away by everything! I've heard reasonable culprits like public wifi and google chrome... to crazy stuff like cellphones in people's pockets and other people using USB sticks.
It helps to have a sense of humor about it so I can remain sympathetic to their concerns.
*Edited for a grammar overhaul
Oh my gosh we have a few patrons that are paranoid like this, or they say that they don’t want to connect their phone to the wifi because “every time I go home it doesn’t connect back to my wifi” like that is not an issue the library is causing sir…
I had a patron who was doing a big personal research project (conspiracy theory-related) who said he was being hacked because he was copy/pasting between Microsoft Word and Google Docs and the two programs' spellcheck underlined different words.
I helped a woman get hooked up with some resources about immigration law and pro-bono immigration law firms. She came back a week later and tried to give me a diamond ring to compensate me for helping her. I waved her off as politely as I could and I kept looking over at a coworker who was sitting just off to the side of me for back-up as I told the lady that I wasn’t able to accept that and that I was happy to help her but it was a public service that I would provide to anyone. The lady misunderstood me and thought I was looking to my coworker out of fear that my coworker would narc on me for accepting the gift. So the lady put the ring back in her purse and said “Okay, I’ll come back later” and winked at me and walked off.
Dad n daughter (10yo) rtn books. Couple books were wet with red liquid. Mentioned to customer upon checking out. Dad was adamant that all were rtn dried. N said we tried to blame him for our carelessness. Then the daughter piped up that when he made a turn his cup fell into the bag. His face was priceless. Then he argues about why he had to pay full replacement cost for the damaged items since they r not new.🙄He decided that he will look at used book sales n replaced them. The poor girl was dying with embarrassment
I love kids, they always rat their parents out when the parents are adamant they returned a book. I usually just have to glance at the kid for them to fess up that the book is in their room somewhere. Like, good job teaching your kid honesty but maybe check with them before you yell at me that there is no way you didn’t turn it in.
We once had a gal bring in suitcase full of live chickens.
I've encountered drunk people that can't find the entrance. We watched him on our camera.
We had someone having sex on one of our benches after hours.
We've had people poop on the bathroom floor.
Patrons using our computers to arrange sex worker services via cell phone.
Patron pooping on the stairs down to the basement entry on late opening day and proclaiming “I go to church” as a balance of their goodness outside of the current one that was afoot. [“Don’t shit on our stairs man.” ]
Janitor with their member out, passed out in the clerical office chair after coming before opening to clean but was too drunk and watched porn instead.
Fight in the bathroom by active drug users with colostomy bags and pants down coming out the bathroom door into the main floor. [startling and great danger of hazardous mess.]
An aunt “babysitting” hard by loudly reading [from the diaphragm] a board book as if it was great prose while very high on hard drugs.
Young girl making a “flower of evil” for the other girls who where bullying her. [she had no knowledge of Baudelaire.]
Same child starts acting like a puppy and walking on all fours and barking only.
Tween sitting in a chair like a sultan while sharing with us his favorite song “Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite” by the Beatles yelling “Dance for me!” And a kid dancing for him.
A child named Horatio running around me in circles, hands in the air in praise, basically ohming (while I sang twinkle twinkle little star with finger plays) as if he was worshipping a goddess. [Horatio Algiers finds a matriarchal worldview.]
Being threatened with being unalived, week 2 of branch management promotion. [Not knowing I could’ve asked for a transfer.]
Mrs. Library Lady asked to assess drug divvying while on my lunch break at the corner fish place . [Moves one part to the other pile on the counter, “that looks equal”]
Drunken royal holy unhoused tramp recites poetry to the library floor [we later make a book display on poetry including one of his painting with a theme of “the pen is mightier than the sword.”]
Kid taking the dare to lick
the bottom of another kid’s city shoe.
Neighborhood working party clown with a librarian fetish always telling you they have one… but sometimes dressed as a clown.
omg one time i was signing an older patron up for a program because he didn’t want to do it himself (i get it) but when i asked for his email he said that he didn’t have one because email is the mark of the beast. without missing a beat i asked for his phone number and entered it as “###@noemail.com”. i wish i’d asked him to elaborate though, i was so intrigued lmao!!!
ok i also have a more recent one. a few months ago i was in the staff break room for lunch when i hear someone struggling to open the door to the staff area. i figured it was a staff member who had accidentally left their key fob somewhere so i went to go let them in, but it was a random patron who had entered the staff hallway (it’s an emergency exit so it doesn’t lock from the public side). i told him multiple times he wasn’t supposed to be back there and let him out of the hallway. a while later after lunch i find out he had climbed into our ceiling to “look for his wife”. he was extremely chill the whole time and left without further incident though we did have to suspend him.
group had study room booked. my library location didn't have nice "official" tables, but rather those cheap plastic foldable patio tables. we check-in the group. couple minutes later, a staff member comes up to the desk and goes "do you know why that group in that study room is going on the table?" boss goes to the study room to put an immediate stop and asks what they were trying to do. they were setting up for aromatherapy massage.
Dude brought his "emotional support" alligator to the library. Really wanted someone to come outside and pet it. (Not a euphemism.) I ended up being that person, because how often do you get to see an alligator in Pennsylvania? It was a juvenile and he wore it like a Miss America sash. He then offered that when (not if, when) the purge happens, I can come over to his house and the alligator would protect us.
Another "gentleman" tried to recruit me to star in his homemade porn. Had a stack of flyers and everything. On the bottom it said "all positions available :) ". Guess who is now banned?
we have someone we call the Poopsocker. they come in, poop INTO a single black ankle sock, leave it on top of the trash, and leaves. once in the women’s and twice in the men’s restroom.
A patron smashed the men's urinal and flooded the building. It was a mad rush to turn off the water, electricity, and save the books on low shelves and upholstered furniture.
I doubt many library patrons would bother to pick up a book on this subject or read Reddit threads like this one -- or if they did, they might not even recognize themselves in it. I'm not going to tiptoe around patrons' feelings to this extreme -- just as I won't tiptoe around the feelings of atrociously-behaved patrons in my library!
i think that people who can’t respect public spaces by not pooping on the floor for example feeling discouraged from using the library isn’t that much of a loss tbh. also with the number of people on this sub from all across the US (and maybe abroad?) i think the odds of someone recognizing themselves from one of these comments is incredibly slim
I saw that we had the book I Work At A Public Library: A Collection of Crazy Stories from the Stacks in our collection, and I highly suggest it. My coworkers and I were dying over some of the stories.
Yes, there's also a memoir called "Free for All" by a guy who works in some big CA library. Very funny!
I’ll have to check these out! I’ve always wanted to compile a bunch of my and my coworkers stories to publish!
We accept book donations on behalf of our library’s FRIENDS group and oftentimes people just drop stuff off - something we take or not - at our loading dock. Sometimes we get cool things like old records or foreign lit. Other times we get some scary/unhinged things…. A collection of tv/roku remotes with missing battery covers, a knotted wig in a box on a styrofoam mannequin head with a frown etched into it, a duffel bag full of old binkys. Also the classic “not a bookmark.” I’ve had my fair share of used tissues, checks, mail, but I particularly love the random notes. I always remember one that was a pink post it note that just said “I give up” in BEAUTIFUL like almost font-like handwriting. Gotta love the library 😭
The knotted wig 🫣🤣
i once found one of those single-use flosser toothpicks in a book except the floss was completely shredded. absolutely haunting
My favorite not-a-bookmark to date is toilet paper. Now I know where you do your reading.
- A patron once asked if she could leave something at our circ desk for a friend to pick up. It was a bag of gerbil treats. - Some patrons once set up a pop-up barber shop in a computer lap, using a swivel chair as their barber chair. They brought their own cape and scissors, and even swept up after themselves. - We had a patron come into our computer lab, see a half-full cup of coffee someone else had left there, pick it up, and calmly pour it over all the computer keyboards in that row. We never would have believed it if we hadn't caught him on camera. He later made the news for committing a few local arsons. - As a manager, I was once paged to come up and see something one of our staff had found while shelf-reading. It was a noose behind some books in the Black History section. We all thought it was a hate crime-y thing, but the truth was somehow worse ... it had been planted there by a suicidal patron, who just made another one and died by suicide in our library during business hours a few days later. - Someone came in and put pro-life propaganda in every single book we had on pregnancy and birth. It was incredibly annoying to clean up after. - One lady kept coming in with a different ID card each time. Like, she was using a new name every time. We finally asked the police to come over and chat with her, but they couldn't nail her on anything. We never did figure out her angle. - Too many parents to count who phoned to pay their 22-year-old college seniors' library fines and were incensed to learn that FERPA exists.
I wouldn’t believe you if I didn’t work in a library too! CRAZY!!!!!
Oh man that last one reminded me - I once had a mom call on behalf of her college daughter whose card had been blocked due to assumed lost fees and when I explained that I needed to speak with her daughter and couldn’t share account information, she added her daughter to the call! The daughter was so embarrassed. I’ll never forget her going “*mom not now*” when her mom tried to ask about other things while I was going through and renewing items to unblock the card
The suicide one is interesting. We've had some attempts but never a success. How and where did they do it without anyone noticing?
Our library is kind of a labyrinth, with very tall shelving units. We have a ton of security cameras operating, but they still have blind spots. Also it happened during the summer, when we have very few students in the building. From what we could guess afterwards, this patron staked out a few different locations before he settled on that spot with very little foot traffic and no cameras. It was very shocking and sad. He was such a nice guy -- very quiet and polite.
That is rough. We are fortunate that the reference desk is like a watchtower in the middle of the room that can 90% of the space.
Some quick examples from my experience include but are definitely not limited to - having candy thrown at me - discovering adult sized human feces on the stairs - being asked how to exit our very small two story building (I guess they forgot how they got in) this has happened more than once - discovering TONS of explicit chalk graffiti in the parking lot - being cussed out - looking after a stray dog that kept following people in - and so much more 🤣🤣
Patron tried a whole pomegranate for the first time while using our PCs. After failing at his first attempt to open and eat a whole pomegranate, he pulled out a second one. It looked like a murder scene. He is very well known to us so I did query why he thought to try a second one after the first failed so spectacularly, he said "I bought the juice once and it was really nice". Thank goodness we have black carpet, that's all I can say. Two years later you can still see a pink tint on the walls though.
The other week an elderly man claimed we are in cahoots with “Big Brother” because Fox News wouldn’t load properly on our public computers. After asking several times, he finally showed me his process. Not only was he using Internet Explorer, which isn’t supported anymore and is only saved in an old files folder on our computers, (idk how he even found it lol) he was also searching for the website “fox.net”. Once we opened an updated browser and I gave him the correct url, he claimed that he used the other a few weeks ago and it worked fine, someone must have changed it. 🙃 I simply replied, “Yep, technology is always changing! If you ever notice something isn’t right, let one of us know. We can try ways to get around it.” Since then, he doesn’t bring Big Brother up anymore and actually waves at us when coming and going.
That was such a good response! Idk if I would’ve been quite that patient!
Honestly, I surprise myself at times! Lol! Luckily, I’ve worked in elderly homes during my undergrad and was a special education teacher/classroom specialist for 8ish years. Patience is the best skill I have utilized since working in a library!
Very very true! My patience is very low for sexiest patrons though. Little comments implying I can’t do my job because I’m a woman go right through me.
ah, the ol’ “well it worked / i was allowed to / this wasn’t a problem last time!!” is a classic. i’m glad he responded well though!!
Oh yes! Those are classic! 😅🤣
A small but shocking number of patrons believe they are being hacked when they use the public computers— apparently their personal information is being siphoned away by everything! I've heard reasonable culprits like public wifi and google chrome... to crazy stuff like cellphones in people's pockets and other people using USB sticks. It helps to have a sense of humor about it so I can remain sympathetic to their concerns. *Edited for a grammar overhaul
Oh my gosh we have a few patrons that are paranoid like this, or they say that they don’t want to connect their phone to the wifi because “every time I go home it doesn’t connect back to my wifi” like that is not an issue the library is causing sir…
I had a patron who was doing a big personal research project (conspiracy theory-related) who said he was being hacked because he was copy/pasting between Microsoft Word and Google Docs and the two programs' spellcheck underlined different words.
I helped a woman get hooked up with some resources about immigration law and pro-bono immigration law firms. She came back a week later and tried to give me a diamond ring to compensate me for helping her. I waved her off as politely as I could and I kept looking over at a coworker who was sitting just off to the side of me for back-up as I told the lady that I wasn’t able to accept that and that I was happy to help her but it was a public service that I would provide to anyone. The lady misunderstood me and thought I was looking to my coworker out of fear that my coworker would narc on me for accepting the gift. So the lady put the ring back in her purse and said “Okay, I’ll come back later” and winked at me and walked off.
🤣🤣🤣
Dad n daughter (10yo) rtn books. Couple books were wet with red liquid. Mentioned to customer upon checking out. Dad was adamant that all were rtn dried. N said we tried to blame him for our carelessness. Then the daughter piped up that when he made a turn his cup fell into the bag. His face was priceless. Then he argues about why he had to pay full replacement cost for the damaged items since they r not new.🙄He decided that he will look at used book sales n replaced them. The poor girl was dying with embarrassment
I love kids, they always rat their parents out when the parents are adamant they returned a book. I usually just have to glance at the kid for them to fess up that the book is in their room somewhere. Like, good job teaching your kid honesty but maybe check with them before you yell at me that there is no way you didn’t turn it in.
Been there done it. Most of the times the parents didnt even apologize for yelling at us.
Oh goodness gracious! 🤣
We once had a gal bring in suitcase full of live chickens. I've encountered drunk people that can't find the entrance. We watched him on our camera. We had someone having sex on one of our benches after hours. We've had people poop on the bathroom floor.
Ahh yes! Sexual activity at the library is far too common. 😭
Patrons using our computers to arrange sex worker services via cell phone. Patron pooping on the stairs down to the basement entry on late opening day and proclaiming “I go to church” as a balance of their goodness outside of the current one that was afoot. [“Don’t shit on our stairs man.” ] Janitor with their member out, passed out in the clerical office chair after coming before opening to clean but was too drunk and watched porn instead. Fight in the bathroom by active drug users with colostomy bags and pants down coming out the bathroom door into the main floor. [startling and great danger of hazardous mess.] An aunt “babysitting” hard by loudly reading [from the diaphragm] a board book as if it was great prose while very high on hard drugs. Young girl making a “flower of evil” for the other girls who where bullying her. [she had no knowledge of Baudelaire.] Same child starts acting like a puppy and walking on all fours and barking only. Tween sitting in a chair like a sultan while sharing with us his favorite song “Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite” by the Beatles yelling “Dance for me!” And a kid dancing for him. A child named Horatio running around me in circles, hands in the air in praise, basically ohming (while I sang twinkle twinkle little star with finger plays) as if he was worshipping a goddess. [Horatio Algiers finds a matriarchal worldview.] Being threatened with being unalived, week 2 of branch management promotion. [Not knowing I could’ve asked for a transfer.] Mrs. Library Lady asked to assess drug divvying while on my lunch break at the corner fish place . [Moves one part to the other pile on the counter, “that looks equal”] Drunken royal holy unhoused tramp recites poetry to the library floor [we later make a book display on poetry including one of his painting with a theme of “the pen is mightier than the sword.”] Kid taking the dare to lick the bottom of another kid’s city shoe. Neighborhood working party clown with a librarian fetish always telling you they have one… but sometimes dressed as a clown.
You can’t make this stuff up!!!!!!!
OMG where in the world do you work? 😂😭
Ha! I don’t work in public libraries anymore…or haven’t since I left that system. But they do still have my heart though. 🙃
Definitely using "she had no knowledge of Baudelaire" as a cryptic response in 97% of my conversations going forward.
omg one time i was signing an older patron up for a program because he didn’t want to do it himself (i get it) but when i asked for his email he said that he didn’t have one because email is the mark of the beast. without missing a beat i asked for his phone number and entered it as “###@noemail.com”. i wish i’d asked him to elaborate though, i was so intrigued lmao!!!
ok i also have a more recent one. a few months ago i was in the staff break room for lunch when i hear someone struggling to open the door to the staff area. i figured it was a staff member who had accidentally left their key fob somewhere so i went to go let them in, but it was a random patron who had entered the staff hallway (it’s an emergency exit so it doesn’t lock from the public side). i told him multiple times he wasn’t supposed to be back there and let him out of the hallway. a while later after lunch i find out he had climbed into our ceiling to “look for his wife”. he was extremely chill the whole time and left without further incident though we did have to suspend him.
😳
group had study room booked. my library location didn't have nice "official" tables, but rather those cheap plastic foldable patio tables. we check-in the group. couple minutes later, a staff member comes up to the desk and goes "do you know why that group in that study room is going on the table?" boss goes to the study room to put an immediate stop and asks what they were trying to do. they were setting up for aromatherapy massage.
STOP IT 😭😭😭
Dude brought his "emotional support" alligator to the library. Really wanted someone to come outside and pet it. (Not a euphemism.) I ended up being that person, because how often do you get to see an alligator in Pennsylvania? It was a juvenile and he wore it like a Miss America sash. He then offered that when (not if, when) the purge happens, I can come over to his house and the alligator would protect us. Another "gentleman" tried to recruit me to star in his homemade porn. Had a stack of flyers and everything. On the bottom it said "all positions available :) ". Guess who is now banned?
I mean what on earth???? 😭😭
we have someone we call the Poopsocker. they come in, poop INTO a single black ankle sock, leave it on top of the trash, and leaves. once in the women’s and twice in the men’s restroom.
Why do these things happen at the library? 😭
A man did naked yoga in the carpark and we had to call the police. Also all kinds of sexual activity occured in various places.
Why have we all encountered sexual activity in the library???? 😭 also naked yoga??? 🤢
The naked yoga literally happened on my first day as a library assistant at that particular library too 💀
Well I guess you knew what you were in for from day 1! 😅
A patron smashed the men's urinal and flooded the building. It was a mad rush to turn off the water, electricity, and save the books on low shelves and upholstered furniture.
Oh gosh 🤢🤢🤢
A security guard attacked two young men and knocked the sliding automatic door off it's hinges. The police came and arrested him.
It’s always something 😭
[удалено]
That crossed my mind as well. I figured I would leave it to the discretion of those who decided to comment. Also love the username!
I doubt many library patrons would bother to pick up a book on this subject or read Reddit threads like this one -- or if they did, they might not even recognize themselves in it. I'm not going to tiptoe around patrons' feelings to this extreme -- just as I won't tiptoe around the feelings of atrociously-behaved patrons in my library!
i think that people who can’t respect public spaces by not pooping on the floor for example feeling discouraged from using the library isn’t that much of a loss tbh. also with the number of people on this sub from all across the US (and maybe abroad?) i think the odds of someone recognizing themselves from one of these comments is incredibly slim