#library problems

[esperata]

Since this seems to be an issue causing more arguments lately,

No nuance, we die like men

[conservethis]

The next time you think to tell someone, “Oh, just donate it to the library…” know that this picture was almost a week of work*. A week to fill up 8 boxes with donated books that were duplicates of books we already owned (which are now slated for surplus), 2 boxes of books unsuitable for (or duplicates of books already in) the special collection they were donated to (but which will be good additions to our general collection), and 3 boxes of books [not pictured] that ARE suitable for said special collection.

It’s not even my job technically, but I’m good at this kind of sorting work and agreed to help because it’d probably be another 5 years before someone else got to it. And we needed the shelf space back!

Donating books can be helpful and generous in some circumstances, but dang if it isn’t a LOT of work for library staff to triage donations. It’s why a lot of libraries either no longer take donations, or why they only accept very particular things.

And because my library is at a state university, we are technically a state entity, and as such we cannot donate said books to some other non-state entity. So we can’t just donate them to a prison library or a homeless shelter or other such things. They have to go through the same process as all other university/state property, and be sold as surplus, hopefully to be purchased and resold by a third party (versus just getting chucked into the recycling bin).

*and that was a week with a spreadsheet I already had to check the donations against our holdings. Making that spreadsheet alone was probably another week’s worth of work in itself.

[leche-flandom]

Aw man I'm stuck in the library elevator and the emergency phone doesn't work and I can't contact the campus police. It's hot.

[thelightwillbreakthrough]

chat which thing i’ve seen a patron do recently is worse

*the child did in fact appear old enough to be told to cover their own mouth

**not even their newspaper they brought to read, one of ours. meant for everyone

***with their returns they were also carrying. a box of covid tests

[samayla]

I am so so so sore today.

After weeding the past three years, we had two empty shelves at the head of our elementary fiction section. We also had several shelves in that section that had no more room for new arrivals. I shuffled all the elementary chapter books down to make room in those tight sections. And then I did the opposite in the high school fiction, which had some shelves with just 10-12 books on them. I condensed that down to create an open shelf at the end of the aisle for new arrivals in that section.

I moved every chapter book we own. And crawled on the floor through most of it because 90% of my patrons are tiny people who need low shelves.

*cries in librarian*

[grey-gazania]

Maybe this makes me a bad librarian, but I genuinely don't think anyone should be watching porn in any public space, and especially not in the public library.

[bibliosauruswrecks]

Him: I really felt like we had a connection.

Me: You pay taxes to the county. The county pays me to smile and tell you to have a nice day. That’s the connection. Have a nice day. 🙂

[fromthestacks]

There are probably only like four people here who are gonna understand this rage but

I don’t know if I physically CAN fight the entire Baker & Taylor staff, but if they don’t stop sending “processed” books to my library without jackets and tattle tape I’m gonna fuckin TRY

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk

[theonlyacceptableevalana]

I know this isn't what inspired OP's post, but I came across this book earlier today, and the coincidence was too great for me not to share it:

(From LitHub's Most Anticipated Books of 2025)

I've never wanted to have sex with an airplane but I think it's cool how some people want to have sex with airplanes. I think the world is a richer and more colorful place for it.

[jo-snicket]

library problems

boss: we used to have a full run of this with double copies and the archives also had their own copies. can you look into why the database says we only have 2 copies of it total?

me: yes, okay we don't have those on the shelf and i can't find anything in our catalog either BUT i have this thing that is the same thing

boss: oh right! the title changed! that's the thing we're looking for; i just forgot the title changed!

me: oh thank you god

[goddamnelsa]

a coworker tried to use gemini to get book recs for a teen today and i almost started screaming like girl we took A CLASS ON THIS WHAT ARE YOU DOING???????? use novelist like the library gods intended what the actual fuck?????

[conservethis]

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[conservethis]

me, every time I leave the lab to get something from our closed stacks but don’t actually write down the call number of that thing

“i don’t need a list, i'll remember what i need. it’s four things. no need to write it down” thats the DEVIL SPEAKING!!!!!

[leche-flandom]

I've started a job search & had to go through my Professional Stuff folder. I should put "takes IMMACULATE notes during meetings" under skills.

Here are snippets from my first and last time as note taker for our library's ref department meeting.

For context, E is our boss who Has Had Enough. Green M was my work mom and H was a young guy who had worked for the library for too damn long and lost all his filters.

I don't miss the drama with the study rooms, which many patrons tried to treat like private hotel rooms.

Working ref desk meant we were in charge of the public computers, which tended to attract patrons who liked to act a fool in the library. We'd all been yelled at, threatened, harrassed, etc in this department, and were pretty used to this guy, who somehow always started shit when he wanted to read a newspaper.

Here we were talking about who would cover our stations during the holiday party. It would've been great if our deputy director, who is a hard ass and loved to fire people, could've taken our spot, especially since she thought all of our complaints about working the ref desk were dramatic.

M-black, a tired grandma librarian with archaic (?) expressions, spent the rest of the meeting talking about this patron and that patron "nutting up." I had to write all this down with a straight face while my friends, H and D, were staring at me like 👀.

I captured everything perfectly, and yet this is what my boss sent me when she received my report:

Rude.

[silelda]

Trying to figure out RDA (cataloging) rules only to find they're as convoluted as a contract with a fae.

Literally had one rule say to use another rule that said to use another!

[bookdragonlibrarian]

When a patron asks why the bathrooms need to have keys if there are stalls inside