It's a Christmas miracle!

I had never witnessed an incident of personal accountability like I did a couple of weeks ago. A man approached the circulation desk near the end of the day on a Friday. There were 3 of us there, getting ready to close up shop, and it took a little bit of effort on the part of this patron to get our attention. And when we found out what he wanted us to do, we all stood there in awed admiration.

This patron showed us a book that he had been using. He had never signed it out, but had read it only while in the libary. He showed us how it had been damaged by water, and admitted that he had spilt the water on it while he was using the book. The pages were obviously thickened and separated because of water damage, but the book itself wasn't in horrible condition, just a little worn-looking. Then the patron produced a new copy of the book, still in its Amazon.com wrapper, and told us that he would like to replace the book he had damaged. My supervisor was so suprised at this man's honesty that she hastily admitted to never having seen such a thing before. We all had stopped what we were doing and just stood there, not knowing how to take the new book from the kindly man. My supervisor finally took the old book, ripped off the barcode and gave it to him in exchange for the new one. We didn't, after all, need two copies. So the patron got a copy out of the deal, but he certainly wasn't expecting it. At one point I said, "well, now you'll have 3 dates for Saturday if you want". He smiled shyly, but really just wanted to hand in the new book and get out of there. I don't blame him. People who are genuinely charitable don't wish for a scene to be caused in honour of their good will. But I certainly won't forget this Christmas miracle for a very long time.

Next, please.

A note on surviving the weirdos from another planet

This post isn't about library patrons, but about the kinds of weird people the library attracts. One of my co-workers told me that there used to be a foot fetishist who came to the library who would crawl around under the study carrels and touch women's unshod feet. Pretty creepy. And then there was a woman who liked to urinate on the floor between the shelves of a particular book collection. Someone saw her and asked what she was doing. Sadly, these freaks appeared long before my time. But new and equally interesting people still find their way to my workplace, it's just a matter of being at the right place at the right time. And for one brief moment a couple of weeks ago, I was.

I was sitting at the circulation desk with my supervisor, and we were chatting in between helping patrons. Suddenly, I started feeling really anxious just as this odd-looking character came through the door. He was quite short and stalky, with bleached hair and pronounced facial features. He walked up to where my supervisor was sitting and plunked down a cerlox-bound booklet, with a bright yellow cover, on the counter in front of her. She looked at it without saying a word, and the weirdo said, "here you go. There's an ISBN number on it", implying that the booklet be catalogued and shelved. He left right after, and I was so relieved. There was just something 'off' about this guy. I asked my supervisor if she had ever been given a book by someone off the street before, and she said no. She wanted to toss it out, and I asked to keep it. The title is, "Have You Taken your Meds?..Today!".

I've tried to read some of the poems in the book, but they really don't make much sense. Let's just say they could use a lot of editing, some clarification of the author's thoughts, and perhaps removal of the hand-written editing, including little notes the author had written to himself about the poems and their publication. On the cover he claims the poems are "notes on surviving", and I assume he means surviving psychiatric treatment. They must have done something really scary to this guy to cause him to produce the kind of nonsensical stuff he has written. I think the doodle on the cover of the oval-shaped alien head and antennae, with his first initials and surname inserted where the eyes should be, tells us where his mind is, and perhaps where he hopes to be going.

Next, please.