Posts filed under ‘perpetrated by students or patrons’
Nice try, CC students.
Colorado College Humanities Liaison Librarian Steve Lawson writes: “On a very busy Sunday of third week [end of fifth block, February 2011], a student asked me about these “reserved” signs on a few tables in the second floor atrium. The library was full of people studying, even sitting on the floor, but these two tables were open with their reserve signs. This was either a pretty good prank or an excellent psychology experiment: you can’t reserve the tables in the main second floor reading area.” Thanks, Steve Lawson!
Shhh-ins and a book snatcher to save libraries in the UK
February 5, 2011 was Save Our Libraries Day in the United Kingdom. In Milborne Port in Somerset a hooded “book snatcher” stole books from children, and protesters in Sheffield held a shhh-in. There was a flashmob read-aloud in Cambridge, and we hear one supporter of libraries spent the day “joyreading.” This image is a “logo” for the Woburn Sands library — I love how it’s a sort of anti-logo, NOT the usual simple, simplified, simplistic, bombastic, corporate logo. Thanks, Dina Wood!
National Archives researcher confesses to forging date
This is a non-cute shenanigan. From the press release: “Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero announced today that Thomas Lowry, a long-time Lincoln researcher from Woodbridge, VA, confessed on January 12, 2011, to altering an Abraham Lincoln Presidential pardon that is part of the permanent records of the U.S. National Archives. The pardon was for Patrick Murphy, a Civil War soldier in the Union Army who was court-martialed for desertion. Lowry admitted to changing the date of Murphy’s pardon, written in Lincoln’s hand, from April 14, 1864, to April 14, 1865, the day John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC. Having changed the year from 1864 to 1865, Lowry was then able to claim that this pardon was of significant historical relevance because it could be considered one of, if not the final official act by President Lincoln before his assassination.”
My researchers sometimes wonder why we don’t like to have pens in the reading room. Now you know one reason. (There’s also the problem of pen explosions.) Thanks, Leah Davis Witherow!
Library clears its shelves in protest of closure threat
Librarians and patrons are working together on a shenanigan for a good cause at the Stony Stratford library in England. More information here. Thanks, Suzie DeGrasse!
Jus Reign The Library Study Song
I’m not sure what library this is, anybody know? Thanks, Dina Wood!
Library dance parties
Several institutions of higher learning offer (or suffer) library dance parties during exam week. Oberlin College’s five-minute dance breaks recently got some NPR coverage; this video shows a sampling (sans music) at about 1:07 and forward. The University of Montana, Allegheny College, the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, the College of Charleston, the University of Virginia, the University of Miami, and many others also host (deliberately or not) dance parties small and large. Thanks, Carol Dickerson, Ray English, and others!
Surprise dance at the UNL library
Students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln perform a choreographed dance to My Chemical Romance’s “Teenagers” during the university’s “dead week” in December 2010. The youtube description calls it a flash mob, but to my mind a flash mob would be bigger and perhaps less choreographed; this seems more like a show. Excellent shenanigan, whatever they may call it. Thanks, Gwen Gregory!
A jungle in the library
photo by Scott Johnson
Colorado College student Max Robillard, of CC’s Integrative Design Club, created a small jungle at CC’s Tutt Library using plants found throughout the building. He says:
“I saw it as a simple, easy public space intervention. I just wanted to give people in the library something new, and to offer them a pseudo-shelter, or retreat, from the public space that the library is. My friends and I put it together on Sunday afternoon, and we took it down Monday night.”
Thanks, Carol Dickerson!
Librarians do not react to farts.
Kid takes his fart machine to the library. Notice that the librarians are unfailingly professional at all times; they don’t react at all. Some of the patrons react, but politely. It’s a triumph of the human spirit, really.
Dewey Decimal Rap
Hi, my name is Melville Dewey! Nice to meet you, how you doing? This is surprisingly catchy and funny. New Hanover County Public Library, Wilmington, North Carolina, 2009. Make sure to watch the excellent dance moves at the end. Other library song videos made by library staff or library school students include Libraries Will Survive and I Want to Be a Librarian. And of course there are plenty of videos made by students or other patrons, like Library Thriller or the excellent Library Girl.
Library Shenanigans 
