mydayatthelibrary

[mydayatthelibrary]

COVID Lady

Waaaaay back in February we had a display up from a local photographer who took pictures in the hospital during COVID. We had a small sign warning of the potentially sensitive nature of the display, but no one ever complained. It was while this display was up that we first noticed the woman who we (somewhat affectionately) call COVID Lady.

I do not know her housing situation, though I do know that she comes in regularly and is seemingly working her way through the classics. I found Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, and The Scarlet Letter for her the other day. I used to work at a large bookstore company (who will remain nameless) and am still programmed to put the book in the patron’s hand, so I hand delivered these to her. She is very nice and quiet most of the time.

Here’s the weird part: she talks to nothing.

Now, I talk to myself and mutter about what I’m doing. This woman is different. She mutters about God and how humans are destroying the earth and how there will be an apocalypse. She opened her email the other day (I only know this because I was shelving DVDs and she was not as subtle as she maybe thought she was being) and muttered about “death, death, death. People are dying and killing each other, death, death, death.”

The COVID display had her muttering about the end times and how there would be a reckoning from God. She would quote whole bible verses at the display and we actually had to ask a couple of times if she was okay. Each time she reacted like she did not know what she was saying (and maybe she didn’t).

A month or so after the display went down, we heard her talking to John Adams on the stairs. How she got a word in edge-wise is beyond me. When asked if she needed help, she said she was fine and moved on with her day. I don’t think she knows that the things she says in her head are actually being spoken.

She always smiles at me and has the general demeanour of a scared deer. She always stops her muttering when she sees us coming or when asked if she is all right.

I was shelving upstairs and in a book in the pharmaceuticals section I found three cardstock note pages full of increasingly less coherent ramblings about God and the end times. I recycled these notes and moved on with my day, but I would not be surprised if they were from her. Maybe not. Maybe they were left by someone who was reading about medicine for rheumatism and decided to talk about religion.

[mydayatthelibrary]

Police...again

As I have next to no information regarding this incident, I will keep this brief.

I was leaving work when three police officers came through on their way (almost inevitably) upstairs. Our upstairs is where our nonfiction is held and where our longer-term computers are available. Therefore, it is also where our homeless and disadvantaged patrons congregate. They will spend hours on end on the computers or simply sitting quietly, or reading at their leisure. I feel for them and most greet me with a smile now.

The police were called because of a patron on trespass who not only came into the building but secluded himself in the upstairs men's bathroom to drink alcohol. This is breaking so many codes of conduct, but I do not blame him for coming in. It is getting quite cold and the temperature is going to dip even more extremely in the coming days. Our homeless have nowhere else to go. There will be warming shelters opening either tonight or tomorrow but that still means a lot of time outside in frigid conditions.

I had a patron asleep at a desk yesterday for several hours. I know that our and every library's code of conduct says we are not allowed to have patrons sleeping, however, when they have no where else to go, I think a couple hours of safe sleep is a basic human right. If someone complained or they were snoring, I would say something. As it stands, they are only sleeping here so that they can spend the night walking around the nearby park to keep warm and make sure they are not arrested or stolen from.

Please help people find shelters to keep safe. I have provided the link for the Red Cross directory here:

[mydayatthelibrary]

Police Again

We have a patron who is disadvantaged in more ways than one and is generally a sweet enough guy. For the purposes of this story we will call him Mike (not his actual name). He has over $70 in back-fees (which is impressive as we don’t really have fees unless the item is overdue past 6 weeks), so no matter how much he may ask me to put the latest Marvel movies on hold for him, I cannot.

Mike was just escorted from the building in the care of three police officers, three of our security guards, and two of our managers on duty. In my humble opinion, that was far too excessive. He is generally a very nice guy, though certainly more than a little eccentric.

Once, while working at the reference desk in nonfiction, he came up to me and a few of my co-workers to show us the enormous blister he had on his palm. Apparently he had burned it cooking. I am not here to talk about the legitimacy of  this claim but instead to point out that he had a problem and asked us if we thought he should pop it. We told him to get it looked at by a nurse or doctor. I know for a fact he did not because he cannot.

The problem with Mike is that he eats at the computer tables upstairs. I don’t enjoy that we allow eating in the library, but he certainly should not be doing it by tech. He also spilled an entire soda all over the desk, chair, and computer because of the aforementioned burn on his palm. He has been told for months on end that he is not allowed to eat or drink open topped containers at the computer tables, but he persists. We had to ask him to leave because of this. Through this and potentially other problems, he had been put on trespass from the building.

It is rainy and getting colder out, so perhaps that was what drove him through our doors again today. He walked right in and went upstairs to his usual spot at the computers. Manager on duty told him that he had been served a trespass and was asked to leave. Three police officers arrived a few moments ago and went upstairs. All was silent until they made their way back down and Mike was yelling that he wanted “that man’s name! I want you to write down his name!” I am assuming it was the security officer who asked him to leave, but I cannot know for certain.

I felt badly mostly for the other patrons, who looked scared at seeing the authorities escorting a yelling man out of the building. I also feel a bit bad for Mike. He may have mental issues that made this whole ordeal so much worse for him. That said, we have rules for a reason and I can speak from experience that we are not the most nit-picky library in the world. We do not get after people for sleeping as much as we strictly should be. We tell people when they have broken the rules, remind them of the rules if they do it again, and then give them an ultimatum of leaving or adhering to the code of conduct. Obviously some situations rush that process through, but most of the time we wait to see if the patron will fix their behaviour first.

I hope Mike can find some help and that he does not get himself into worse trouble elsewhere.

[mydayatthelibrary]

Entertaining Sunday/Monday

We (like libraries across the country and nations around the world) can have the occasional issue with our homeless population. This is not to say that we dislike or are in any way against our homeless or disadvantaged patrons, we simply do not have the resources to deal with their varying mental, physical, or social problems. My city (like a lot of cities in the US) does not have very good social services. The homeless are often forgotten or looked down on. This is unfair. I dislike it very much. So, with nowhere clean, air conditioned, or safe to be, they come here.

One patron, who I will call Bill (this is not his name), is a regular. He generally is very nice and the fact that we know his name shows how much we interact with him. It may also give a hint as to whether we have had to call the police to look after him.

On Sunday, Bill came into the library without a fuss. We are only open for a limited time on Sundays, so the day is either spectacularly quiet, or everyone saves up all of their problems for that small window of time. People in retail can no doubt understand.

It was not until two hours before closing that Bill decided to call the police. He claimed that he had been pushed on the steps out front and that his prescription glasses were broken (which he was wearing without any sign of them being harmed). He then said that the person who attacked him also punched and kicked him, thankfully sparing his already injured or damaged leg.

The manager on duty went to talk to the police and the authorities left.

Then Bill called them again. I do not know the extent of the care given by the first officers called in, but this time a police report was written up for the accused attacker. Once again the manager was called to talk to the police.

Meanwhile, some woman over in children’s needed to see the manager on duty (you know, the one who was talking to the police). I have no idea what she needed him for, but it seemed rather Karen-ish. I cannot safely make this assumption, only knowing that the conversation did not last very long.

Simultaneous to all of this, patrons were trying to watch a movie in the auditorium right outside where Bill was very loudly talking on the phone and then with the officers. While none of the film-goers complained, it still bugged me a bit that they were not able to enjoy the program more fully. Such is life at the library, though.

All of this is just the prologue for today when I heard over the radio headsets a call for security. We have nonfiction in our upstairs and apparently Bill was causing a loud enough scene that I could hear clipped bits of his rant over the headset. The police were called and four of them escorted Bill out of the library. He was talking either into his phone, or to the officers flanking him.

Apparently Bill had been shouting obscenities and generally yelling. He had been at the information desk earlier and told one of my co-workers they would meet later in the garage downstairs. My co-worker said no and Bill insisted that he would. I would have put that in as a personal threat or harassment, but that’s just me.

I have nothing against Bill, personally, nor his circumstances in life. I simply like to share the “fun” of the last two days. You never know when the police are going to show up and ask a patron to leave. There is a hefty chance Bill has been put on trespass and will no longer be allowed on property.

I do not know if Bill is unable to take medication for a potential mental imbalance, or if he was honest in his attack on the steps yesterday. I believe I have seen him in the nearby park on my drive to work and that he lives there. Without the library to go to, he will be forced to either remain in the park everyday, or find somewhere else to be. I worry for them with the on-coming winter. While the local shelters are nice, most are run by churches who are more interested in converting people than helping them. While the argument of beggars can’t be choosers could be used, it is still not fair to force people to do things they may not want to in exchange for basic necessities. I, again, have nothing against their religious beliefs, but I know how pushy they can be about them.

Keep people like Bill in mind. Although he did not behave acceptably today, the reasons are often deeper than someone being frustrating.

On something of a side note, our public printer is on the fritz and everyone and their grandmother are trying to print things today, so life is more than a little hectic.

[mydayatthelibrary]

Greetings All!

I am putting this blog together to document some of my own experiences as an employee of my local library. For the security of my patrons and co-workers, all names will be changed and genders are only to be guessed at. I do NOT want to set this up as a forum to mock anyone or make light of the situations some people find themselves in, but instead to draw attention to the fact that as librarians and library workers we deal with a lot more than books. If anyone would like to ask a question, submit a story, or simply commiserate, please adhere to the guidelines of human decency by not sharing direct names of patrons/co-workers. Also, please put warnings on any posts submitted for potential violence or language. This should be fun and I will not tolerate any bullying or other shenanigans.

I will do my best to put up resources like homeless shelter maps, national mental health phone numbers, and anything else I can think of.

I don’t think people realise how much we have to deal with in our day-to-day lives as employees of the library. It is so much more than just shelving and reading. So turn the page with me and delve into real-life stories of public