Posts filed under ‘perpetrated by students or patrons’
lost ancient art of librarian miniaturization
BoingBoing’s no-text post with this image, posted November 12, 2013, is titled “Fragmentary evidence of the lost ancient art of librarian miniaturization,” which counts as a shenanigan, I think.
The image is all over the internet, sometimes with a citation to the Archives of Prague Castle. [UPDATE, November 14: I’ve just received an email from Martin Halata, head archivist at Prague Castle, who tells me the photograph is not from their archives.] It’s even got lolz versions in Czech [I found these a few days ago but now I can’t find them anymore and it’s driving me crazy].
I used Google’s nifty image search mechanism to discover that — as far as I can tell — this image first appeared on the internet on April 22, 2013, at Lost and Found in Prague. The photographer is M. Peterka and the date is unknown. [Some versions of the image appear with a date of ca. 1940; some say the person in the picture is a man; others say it is a woman.]
MAJOR UPDATE, January 2023: Piotr Kowalczyk of “Reader Updated” has found the original source of this image. It appeared on page 35 Fotorok, volume 58, Issue 1, 1959, with the caption (in Czech): “Archivy chystají velkou jarní výstavu československé státní myšlenky na Pražském hradě,” translated by Kowalczyk as “The archives are preparing a large spring exhibition of the Czechoslovak state idea at Prague Castle.” The photographer was Miroslav Peterka, and the location was the Clementinum in Prague.
not my favorite shenanigan.
Circulation staff at Colorado College’s Tutt Library have found a couple of decorated hard-boiled eggs on bookshelves in our stacks. We’re not sure who’s behind this, or how long it’s been going on, and you know we’re all for library shenanigans in general, but this one has some potentially yucky consequences down the line. We humbly request: if you want to hide eggs in the library, could you maybe use plastic eggs, or blown eggs, or, you know, any kind of non-smelly, non-messy egg-like items instead?
Thanks, Marianne Aldrich, for the photo.
Best “shh” ever? Twerking at the library
“Caramel Kitten” twerks at a bookdrop and inside a library. (She twerks at a lot of other everyday places, too.). A little bit NSFW, depending where you W. Her “shh” at 0:21 made me laugh. Thanks, BoingBoing!
Addendum, October 10, 2013: More library twerking, this time at the Brooklyn Public Library. Thanks, Brooklyn Blowback!
Student film: a librarian’s dream
This charming student project was filmed at Oberlin’s Mudd Library. I am appalled, however, that a librarian’s dream would involve book throwing! Thanks, Ed Vermue.
The Two Ronnies: Shouting in the Library
We here at Library Shenanigans have pointed you toward The Two Ronnies before, but we must do it again. Here’s the shouting in the library sketch. Thanks, David Kay!
Small plush squids say “RAWR”
Anybody know where this takes place? Or who made it? Or anything?
Thanks, Carol Dickerson!
Addendum May 3: Carol tells me it’s the Trinity University Library in San Antonio, Texas.
Where have the unicorns gone?
The American Library Association celebrated National Library Week this year with a book spine poetry contest. They’ve created a Flickr set of all the entries. Congratulations to the winner, elizabeth-3! Thanks, Emily Lloyd; I wouldn’t have known about this if not for you.
museum shenanigans of the 1920s
Okay, so this isn’t precisely a library shenanigan, but it’s close enough, I think — people tend to elide museums and libraries.
On May 10, 1922, Colorado College students removed taxidermied animals from the college museum in Palmer Hall and placed them all over campus. This shenanigan was apparently in protest of then-president of the college, Clyde Duniway, whose policies were unpopular with students: he limited the times when men could visit women’s dormitories; strictly enforced chapel attendance; and fired a football coach for using profanity on the field. 350 students (about half the total enrollment) signed a petition complaining about Duniway, to no avail. The animals prank was one of several that spring: students also released hydrogen sulfide in one classroom building and somehow got a live cow up to the second floor of another.
In January of 1929, CC students again placed the museum animals around campus, this time to protest the firing of the editor of the student newspaper.
Source: J. Juan Reid, Colorado College: The First Century (1979), chapter V, “Controversy and Student Unrest.”
art from library cards
The Library Card Project at the American Craft Council has yielded some lovely things, but I had to take down the image I linked to them because they don’t allow re-posting of images. They do allow me to link, so I’ve linked from their name.
This isn’t the first time artists have used library materials, of course — Giselle Restrepo has worked with library check-out cards (see image at left), and Alice Walsh uses library cards in her book work, to name just a couple of other practitioners. Thanks, Kathleen Kirk!
Ripon College After Dark: Danger in the Library
Scary AND hilarious video and event at Lane Library, Ripon College, Ripon, Wisconsin. I wonder if we should do this at Tutt Library. Thanks, David Graham!
Library Shenanigans 