Librarians have seen it all. They encounter weird situations, strange items left in book drops. Here is some iron clad proof that librarians have seen it all.
1. Giving new meaning to the phrase "hot read"
-We waive a lot of fees during finals. We wake people up who are sleeping (I've definitely had a student thank me and immediately run off to a final). We have students get drunk in study rooms. Once we had a student who was cold light a trashcan fire in a study room to stay warm. Mostly though, it's exhausted tears and thousand mile stares as they turn in headphones and shuffle off to class. Finals are brutal. Edit: for those curious about the trashcan fire, it was a very small fire. The student was careful to take out the bag and it looks like they were just feeding bits of paper into it. Our best guess is that they were just trying to make enough fire to heat up the metal can and use it as an ambient heat source...but still. Who thinks that's a good idea?
2. Finding a cat in the book drop and adopting it
-Dewey the Library Cat was a famous resident cat who was found in a book drop as a kitten. A contest was held to pick a name, and "Dewey Readmore Books" was added to the staff
3. Something smells fishy
-Had someone put a whole salmon in it one year when we were closed for Christmas. Thing festered and rotted for 2 days [and] it did not smell nice
4. Nuclear fallout book drop
-I've found the strangest thing to be the book drop. When I switched branches to staff a newly built library, the book drop was built to be bomb-proof. It was a 24-hour book drop and at night we had a procedure to close off the unit from the rest of the room and then close the fire door to the small room that enclosed the unit. This was not a large city, but rather out in suburbia in a quiet town
5. Taking rap viral
-There was a 30-something year old guy who used the Macs and sound booths in the library to record his raps. He went by the name "Prince Rao", and his raps were so, so terrible. He tried to get some of the employees with video/audio knowledge to remix some of them for him (they didn't)
6. Returning books with a little something extra
-I'm not a librarian but I once returned by birth control pills to the library through the drop box. I was in university and had decided to get s---faced at 11am before a lecture and dropped off some books on my way to class. I had my b/c in my backpack and it must have gotten sandwiched between 2 books. Anyway, after my lecture it was pill time and when I reached into my bag they weren't there. I was still kinda drunk and started panicking. I told a friend who was in class with me (who found my drunken-ness to be quite amusing), [and she] told me I should retrace my steps. I went back to the library and asked someone if anyone had found a pack of birth control pills. She laughed at me and said "Yeah, we've been expecting you." Thankfully the pack of pills had a sticker on it with the prescription as well as my name and address. So all I had to do was show them some ID and they gave me my pills back
7. Bringing back memories with "Dancing Queen"
-I made an account just so I could respond to this. I work in an academic library, but we have one computer that is open for visitor use. We have this one older gentleman that comes in multiple times a week. During at least one of his weekly visits, he will sit at the computer watching slideshows of old black and white yearbook photos while listening to an instrumental version of ABBA's "Dancing Queen". Even though he has on headphones, he plays the music so loudly that I can hear it perfectly at my desk. Often times it's just the two of us in the computer area, and he listens for hours which means I listen for hours. I don't really have the heart to ask him to turn it down because he looks so happy.
8. Checking Google Street View
-Oh yeah, I have another guy who was once caught in a photo on Google Maps Street View. Now [after] everywhere he's been the day before, he comes in [uses] Google Maps Street View...to see if he's been photographed again
9. "Pong" all day
-I used to do some volunteer work at my local library, and there was this one dude that would come in every day and just play Pong on the computer. Nothing else. If he was told to go away, usually when someone else needed the computer, he would just go "sure thing" with a smile, then go sit on a chair somewhere else. The moment the computer was free again, he would go back to playing Pong.
10. Flash mob anyone?
-I was working in my college's library at like midnight during finals week. The library was packed. When some weird kids started a flash mob type thing in the middle of this area that was just rows and rows of tables. Nobody was happy with this and [everyone] started yelling at them. Then this guy went over [and] ripped the power cord out of the boombox and screamed at them to gtfo then proceeded to just yell at nothing before another dude came over and calmed him down. The student I was working with was a freshman and I think I watched his faith in college die
11. Celebrating finals with mimosas
-Someone was giving out mimosas in my school's library last semester during finals week. Don't think they ever got caught. I would have gone to get one if I could find a spot in the library, but it was completely packed
12. Putting MS Paint to good use
-Not a librarian...[I'm] an IT guy who works at a library - we have a guy who comes in and all he does is use [Microsoft Paint] to make road signs - like interstate signs, etc. He was apparently upset recently because we didn't offer large format printing for the road signs he was making. Also, he "improves" upon some signs and...[thinks] he will sell them back to people that will want to use them
13. Finals Week turning the library into the battlefields at Normandy
-I remember walking to the library about an hour after my bio exam during my first semester of college. I took up all of the time allowed for my exam, and it was tough, but I was finally done. I just wanted to return a book and get a cup of coffee quick before heading home for the holidays. Once I got there, I was overcome with how trashed the library looked. I went to Pitt, a big public university. There had to be hundreds if not more students living full time in the library for the past week. I remember looking around and trying to take it all in, it looked like a battlefield. On the third floor, in one of the comfy chairs, I saw a who I am almost certain was from [my] bio class. He was sleeping hard, surrounded by his laptop, a few books, pop cans and junk food wrappers. I chose not to wake him up, because he looked really peaceful at that moment. But I can't imagine the scene that must have happened when he woke up
14. Special delivery-Animal Crackers
-I'll never forget the time I was unloading the drive-thru book drop and heard this little girl. She was asking her mother about the drop, seemingly very curious and interested in it. She decides to experiment by dropping an animal cracker. Then another. And another. I'm chuckling at this point, finding it very amusing how excited she's getting watching the crackers disappear down the chute. About 20 crackers later (this girl was going ham, mind you), her mom decides it's time to drop the books in and puts them all in at once. Crrrruuunch. The crackers at the bottom practically explode from the impact, causing the little girl to squeal with glee at the sound. I now realized that I would...have to clean up this mess, a real FML moment. It turned out that some of these crackers were in her mouth and were wet and soggy, making them smush into the books
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