Posts filed under ‘public libraries’
Valentine’s Day shenanigans
Libraries and librarians never let me down at Valentine’s Day. The Ramsey County Library posted this excellent valentine on their Facebook page:
And the Loyola University Library in Chicago, following the lead of several other libraries, put together a Valentine’s Day display of “blind date” books wrapped in brown paper:
(Thanks, Amy Shuffelton!)
See also this post.
self-checkout and more
BookBub provides a nice gathering-up of library shenanigans by librarians, saying “Anyone who has spent a lot of time in libraries knows that the books aren’t the only reason to keep going back. Librarians are some of the most unique, intelligent, and clever people you’ll meet.”
My personal favorite is the self-checkout mirror. Thanks, Amy Shuffelton!
blueberry shenanigans
Guest blogger Jonathan Caws-Elwitt supplies these excellent Susquehanna County Library Shenanigans.
Newberry the Blueberry [at right] with the author, 2007.
Most years, Hilary’s festival duties included some time spent working the crowd in the Newberry the Blueberry costume. That was normal. But in 2006, Hilary added to her repertoire by staging another little stunt for herself.
The library had been selling Blueberry Festival cookbooks, and Hilary wanted to try offering them online. As she explains, “because the time spent would be a gamble, I ‘bet’ my boss that I would roll a blueberry down the sidewalk with my nose if we didn’t sell at least N copies (or make X dollars—I don’t remember which it was).” She notes that the bet was a premeditated idea, not an impulse of the moment.
And though Hilary did her best to market the cookbooks, she admitted at the outset that she was “rooting to lose, because I thought it would be funny and possibly newsworthy” to do the blueberry-rolling stunt.
Hilary Caws-Elwitt rolls a blueberry down the sidewalk.
Hilary continues: “We didn’t quite meet the target by the time July rolled around, so in my pitch letter to the local TV news stations [for festival coverage], I mentioned that I’d be doing the stunt. At the designated time, a TV crew was indeed present.” But, in terms of spectacle value, the display did not quite bear fruit. “Rolling the berry, even downhill, was quite challenging because it was so small, blueberries aren’t very round, and the sidewalk was rough.” The halting and inelegant progress of Hilary and the berry down the sidewalk didn’t shape up as what we’d call “good television.”
However, the stunt did make it onto television … and yet there was a little issue with contextualization. “The footage ended up being broadcast under a narration about the festival, which didn’t mention at all who I was or what I was doing. So there was no explanation for why this middle-aged woman was crawling around on all fours with her butt in the air.” The blueberry, of course, was too small to be seen by TV viewers. “Luckily I never mind making a fool of myself.”
reader advisory through tattoos
Library staff at the Multnomah County Library in Portland, Oregon are recommending books to readers based on their tattoos.
Of course they are.
Thanks, Terry Kennedy!
live-in library workers
For almost a century, some New York City libraries had live-in caretakers. Here’s a highlight from the 6SQFT article: when the Thornberry family looked after the New York Society Library and lived in it, young Rose Mary Thornberry got to host sleepovers there! Aw man. I wish I coulda gone to one of those.
Somebody sent this shenanigan to me a while back and it got lost in the mire that is my online life. Thanks, Suzie DeGrasse, for bringing it back to my attention!
Indonesian upcycled library building
The Taman Bima Microlibrary in Bandung, Indonesia was built using upcycled plastic ice cream containers, possibly LuVe Litee brand, though I’m not sure. Thanks, Terry Kennedy!
Pokémon Go in libraries
I’m not playing this [see below] and I don’t really understand how it works except that I hear Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End has a similar kind of game in it it.
Apparently, Pokémon Go players are finding creatures and other stuff in libraries all over the United States. I wonder if I could lure one into my office? I will find out.
Pokémon GO: What Do Librarians Need To Know? (School Library Journal)
‘Pokémon Go’ sends swarms of players to bookstores and libraries. But will they remember the books? (Los Angeles Times)
Everything Librarians Need To Know About Pokemon Go! (Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Shelves)
Why Pokemon Go and The Library is a perfect partnership (ALSC blog)
Local library goes viral thanks to Pokemon plans (The Island Packet)
Addendum, July 21: Change “I’m not playing this” to “I wish I could play this but my phone doesn’t have a gyroscope. My kids are playing it and so is practically everybody I know.”
A colleague was able to capture two creatures in the Special Collections area:
librarian poets
Being a librarian and poet, I’m always on the alert for other such, so, herewith, lists of poet-librarians, gathered using the lazyweb and from a post on the topic at In the Library with the Lead Pipe (a blog with the tagline “The murder victim? Your library assumptions. Suspects? It could have been any of us”).
Please let me know of any others who should be on this list — it’ll be an ongoing project. If you’re on the list but would prefer a different link, let me know that, too (jessyrandall@yahoo.com).
(English language)
Anne Haines(languages other than English — thank you, Amadeu Pons i Serra and the Catalan Library Association for providing most of these names)
Manuel Machado
Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo
Addendum, December 9, 2016: Patrick Williams informs me that Josh Honn has a list of librarian poets here.
library fashion show
The New Hanover County Public Library in North Carolina held a contest in 2015 for clothing and accessories made from discarded library books and cassette tapes. You can view the runway show above and the full details here. You’re too late to sign up for the 2016 contest, but perhaps they’ll do it again next year. Thanks, Tom Lovell!
The Psychic Sasquatch and Their UFO Connection
Library weeding isn’t a shenanigan — it’s an important part of collection development and a common activity in academic and public libraries. Pulling out awful / super-fantastic weeded books and drawing attention to them, though — that’s a shenanigan for sure.
The New Yorker has a piece on the Awful Library Books blog today. (Here at Library Shenanigans, of course, we’ve known about the blog since 2010.)
(Also, you gotta love that for Jack “Kewaunee” Lapserities, M.S., and others, the plural of sasquatch is sasquatch. Not everyone agrees — but then, Merriam-Webster claims the plural of bigfoot is bigfeet. So, whatever.)
Thanks, Inge-Marie Eigsti!
Library Shenanigans 