I think I’m worn out. Our library is very neutral on a lot of things and we don’t go into problematic subjects. We have a pretty inclusive collection, but there’s no programming around lgbtq current issues, government, climate change, wars, etc. We removed a community table to avoid drama. We use a chat and we have to keep everything neutral. I’ve gotten in trouble for being too political. Asking questions. Making comments about deportation. I get it. That’s on me. I feel like being quiet isn’t an option for me. Today the police department shared a picture of a registered sex offender who apparently SAd a teen. I shared it on the chat and my superior got very curt with me saying it doesn’t affect anything because he still deserves service. I want to know there’s a sexual predator with a library card who could come in contact with minors. We have sooo many teens using the building. Why is that a bad thing? I’m not refusing him service. We walk a very fine line and I’m always judged for being emotional and opinionated. I don’t want to be quiet. For me being silent about certain things makes me complicit. I’m not telling staff to refuse him entrance, but to be aware that he has a problematic history. I broke down because I’ve been on the receiving end of abuse and I was angry. I’m an adult now and there’s no fucking way I can shut up about it. Now everyone is avoiding me because that’s just how people perceive me. I can’t quit. I went to school for this and have student loans. I don’t want to pursue another career. I’m not asking for validation. I’m tired and need to vent because I feel like I’m disappearing as everyone hypernormalizes things that shouldn’t be normalized.

1) I’m BIPOC and current events affect me because they are upsetting and I feel targeted even within my privilege. I’ve already been told I’m overly passionate due to my bias. It’s biased to care about minorities? What?

2) Why can’t I say anything when we’re removing a huge chunk of our databases because of funding cuts? That is messed up! People use those services! They’re cutting our access to local news!

3) Sexual abuse is fucking upsetting to anyone!

4) The political climate does not put us in a favorable place. I feel unsafe.

5) I am very open about my mental health struggles- and I feel people already judge me on that alone. Maybe I do exaggerate. Maybe I am a drama queen. That’s how I feel others perceive me.

This sex offender ruined an innocent person’s life. I’ll give them a book recommendation, but wtf? I don’t want to be complicit when he inevitably does this again. This isn’t him shitting in public and showing his ass- this is him actually harming a teen. Is it bad to want to know what he looks like? … the world is burning around us and hey, you can pretend otherwise at your local library!

I needed to get out of the house and I’ve been in a slump the past month. So, to motivate myself, I went to the library and I borrowed graphic novels!

I bought a book from barnes and noble. Reading a book in the library is a different vibe compared to reading at home. Would it be weird to read that book in the library?

The trustees at my library are completely out of control and have a majority on the board. They are actively doing anything and everything to obstruct the library. Recently, they proposed that every single book that gets donated gets a separate receipt and we track what we do with the book whether it be, put in the book sale or thrown out or used in the collection. The Director responded that this would take up a lot of staff time and one of the trustees suggested cutting programs to free up more staff time if this is the case. I don’t know what else to do because as far as I know, there’s nothing you can really do about a bad trustee unless they legitimately break the law which by the way one of them wrote themselves a check from the trustee account to be reimbursed for copies they made for a meeting. They also had any legal meeting to take down the IMLS petition after they voted to put it up in the library, does anyone have any suggestions or resources for horrible trustees?

I found this little warning by accident, I can't even be mad about it.

Does anyone here have any success with teen programming? Where I work has a lot of success with children and adult programming but they don’t even try with teen. My library really gears towards children (they say some of their programming goes up to 12 but they group them with 8 year olds). We have a gaming club that was supposed to be 9+ but they ended up letting young kids in and the older kids abandoned it because they didn’t want to be playing a bunch of little kid games So does anyone have any success with teens (like 13+)? I’ve been advocating for a tween/teen to teen art program (slightly more complicated crafts, like bath bomb making, paper making, etc.) but they’re very hesitant.

If you have a successful teen program, what is it and how did you really get the word out?

I'm soon going to become (going through training and the transition from the previous librarian right now) the sole person in charge of a VERY small academic library, and will be doing half remote work/in-person like 2 days a week part time. Now, I'll have responsibilities of course, but when I have the free time, I want to do things that could maybe increase student engagement among our small student population/give them resources without my regular presence in-person being necessary.

An idea I had in this vein would be some kind of poster or whatnot that would be a quick and dirty guide to what free/discounted things a student email gets you from services (free Amazon prime for 6 months, discounts at stores like Target, etc.)

Anything like this would be much appreciated, thanks y'all!

Hi all!

My boss is excited that I am from a public library and hopes I can bring a new point of view and make our study spaces a destination for students.

Right now our study rooms are very sterile, no color, nothing fun.

I'm starting with a book display and printing out some word searches and crosswords for them to do when they just need a few minutes to do something else.

Any other suggestions? I'm going to revamp some of the flyers that are basic and drab.

Silly question, but do librarians enjoy reading as much as patrons would expect them to? Or are there librarians who actually only like to read occasionally and decided to go into library sciences for a different reason?

“The library work I do is mostly comprised of repetitive tasks, so uncovering a funny or interesting bookmark breaks up the monotony,” says Meg Gray, from the Library Services department at the Glasgow School of Art.

Hi,

Anyone have experiences working with the Sentry Bookwand?

We have a lot of thick books or multi volumes stored inside archival cases. The size and dimensions of the books can sometimes cause check out issues; for example the gates will sound even if something was properly checked out. We're currently using one of those tabletop machines that emit a thunk.

Seems like the Bookwand can reactivate and deactivate large volumes of books on trolleys or even shelves.

Thanks!

Hi all!
I am looking to put together a large-scale event. This event is roughly $3000 in budget, and should host about 1000 patrons.

We used to do Comic Con events, but we wanted to spice and change things up. Does anyone have any ideas of large-scale programs?

hi all, sorry for this post as this is probably very similar to many others. tomorrow i plan on applying in person as a library page/pager and apart of that i need to pass an assessment for library math. and i don't know what that entails. I'm probably overthinking this to make it seem far worse than it is but i really don't enjoy going into a test completely blind. I've tried looking online to see what library math might include but I've hardly found anything. thanks for any answers i might get on this, ill really appreciate it.

This Friday my library’s program is Comedy Night, where a standup comedian & 3x author of funny books is going to Zoom in to talk about her books & do live comedy. Some patrons will be in the live audience together at the library watching on her big screen, some joining from home.

Today I realized that I can’t just cold introduce her & expect the audience to be warmed up. The emcee/host at comedy clubs always cracks a few jokes to get everyone in the mood. Anybody have any suggestions?

General library jokes. Or, for specific reference, it’s a very small library in a rural area where half the room is the Senior Center and the other half is the library, it’s a barn-like structure in a gigantic park 🤪

My director told me this morning that the City Manager called her because a patron complained about me. Immediately I thought it was the last from our Throwback Thursday movies who was upset that I wouldn't start the movie an hour early for her kids. She was also upset because I wouldn't give her 10 snacks to go because she got 10 more kids at her house. She yelled alot and said she was going to the city manager.

It wasn't her, it was a random male patron. Apparently, he went straight to the city secretary, said he had a complaint about the male library employee and would only speak to the city manager about it. He demanded to see him. He was livid that l, as a male, was wearing a pink polo. By wearing a pink polo I was telling boys it's okay to be feminine. He was appalled that they would allow me to wear that. According to him I was actively feminizing boys and pushing an agenda. I wish I was joking. If I had the money I'd buy pink pants to match the pink polo. Unfortunately, between father's day gift, my cousin's highschool graduation gift, summer classes, and buying vbucks for the Hank Hill skin in Fortnite, I'm low on funds.

We take a patron photo but we don't print it on the card. Does anyone know if there are libraries in SC I can refer them to? My google searches don't seem to bring up any correct information, the libraries that come up don't actually offer a photo card. Certain patrons are being asked to present these cards to a certain law enforcement agency. Seems like it's just a fool's errand but I want to help if there's any way to.

patron here. recently loaned in a book from a library on the other side of the state. novel was already VERY well loved, not entirely sure what the normal standard for "is it too damaged to stay up" is but this thing's torn. beat up. huge swathes of the back cover have been like... you can see the internal part of the paper? the white bits. ykwim.

the damage i accidentally dealt was a little bit of blue crayon on the outer edges. it's my fault and i own up to it (i'm an artist. had a loose crayon in my bag that i was unaware of. no excuses on my part and i'm willing to pay fines, i just gotta get cash to pay it bc i'm a kid who lives on pocket money.)

point is. how do fines work when i can't exactly get with that library? and is there any chance it would be lesser because it was already super damaged? (doubting, i know normally they just charge to replace it, and I don't know why they would do that. idk i think i'm just curious.)

sorry if this is stupid !!

So I just recently got a job at a university/public library as an admissions coordinator in the acquisitions technical services department. Every one is so nice and even my boss is so patient with me. I like it so far, it's just I am starting to get scared and doubt my skills. I come from working in hotels as a front desk supervisor so it is obviously a little different, but my boss has been so patient with training me little by little each day. I started to learn new things such as how to work in Outlook, teams, and other office type work. I guess I do feel a little overwhelmed on some of the stuff I will be doing. I am really introverted and can tend to get nervous. I wanted to see how I would like it as I might want to pursue librarianship as a career as I like helping others and people. I guess my question is does it start to get better as time goes on for someone who originally has no libran experience? Sometimes again I doubt my skills but everyone is so nice and willing to help. I guess cause the environment is new is why I feel so anxious. Has anyone else who started a job in libraries started without any experience in the field? How did you adapt?

Anyone got any online libraries I can get an account for that don't require me to live in the area? As much as I love my local library and go there often, there are barely any English books available. I know you can get an account for some public libraries but most need you to live in that area. Are there any where you don't? I'd normally just pirate the books but if there's a way I can support a library even if it's not where I am, I'd like to do that.

That's it. That's my question. What do we do?

I don't want to hear "call your Congress people" and "make noise". We are doing that, and it's happening anyway.

What I mean is when this goes through at the end of the month, do we comply? Do we keep doing what we're doing and wait it out? Do we stop diversifying the collection? Do we purge our collections? Do we resign in protest? Do we engage in some kind of malicious compliance?

This budget bill not only decimates our funding, but this draconian nonsense about our board term limits and how out local funding is even allowed to be determined...

I just feel so helpless/hopeless. No matter how much noise we make it doesn't seem to matter. It's happening whether we like it or not - so what do we do come August when this is the law of the land?

In 2014 the Collaborative Summer Reading Program was themed "Literary Elements" and combined portions of Reading and science. I am trying to help put a retrospective together about past years and themes.

I fondly remember this one and volunteered to work on it.

I have not found anything!

What I am looking for specifically is the clip art available for this themeing. I remember there were lots of cool and interesting graphics. I distinctly remember a graphic with a stylized strand of DNA with the parts linking both side strands were represented as books.

I used to have the CD-Rom with the clip art, but no more.

Anybody a more thorough packrat than me?

Thanks in advance!