The Place to Take a Humor Break
Is this you? Do people at restaurants move to tables farther away from you? Do you routinely get booted out of libraries? Are you banned from meditation centers? Does your spouse wear earplugs around the […]
“When you are a small-town librarian, you say ‘yes’ to everything.” Librarian of Weare, New Hampshire, population 8,915, quoted in The Atlantic It’s a quiet life, being a librarian in a small town in New […]
The week I started working at my suburban Philadelphia library, a scruffy-looking man in his twenties sauntered up to the circulation desk wearing a SHOW ME YOUR BOOBS T shirt. Although we librarians are expected […]
Our Bodies our Shelves is my collection of humorous essays about library life. It got terrific reviews, even though you’ve never heard of it. How many terrific reviews? Thirty excellent reviews on Amazon and over […]
Part of a librarian’s job is helping people find a book that they’ve read or heard about. But sometimes our patrons get the title wrong. For instance? The woman who came to the library asking […]
Do you have what it takes for library work? Let’s see if you can read this list of things found in library books or book drops without gasping, flinching, or hollering, “Holy Shit!” (I couldn’t. […]
Library patrons often bring coffee, soda or chips to the library where I work to snack on. But some patrons nosh on more surprising things. For instance? Here are a few of the food items […]
The seventeenth of April is on the horizon, and librarians all over the country are bracing themselves for the sea of patrons who are about to surge, tsunami-like, into our workplaces, demanding tax forms. Over […]
At the library where I work, we have an incredibly challenging patron whose imperious demands, unpleasant attitude and relentless sense of entitlement annoy and depress us all so much that we’ve nicknamed her “Sunshine.” (Never […]
A dead frog A used band-aid A squashed and leaking Ketchup packet. Bedbugs A tampon Toe nail clippings Dozens of baby roaches A slice of bacon Boogers A used Q-Tip A used condom (and it […]