Don't drink and dial?

One of my friends posted this on her Facebook last week and I thought I'd share.

 

M: "Good morning, Library. M Speaking."
Patron: (Heavy breathing, slurring) "Do you have a book on aboriginal medicine and modern medicine? All that in one book?"
M: "Well, the University of M has a lot of books, so I don't know off the top of my head, but I can certainly check for you!"
Patron: "And to use the book, you need to be a student?"
M: "You need to be affiliated with the University of M in some way, yes. Staff at (hospital) have access though! Can I get your phone number?"
Patron: "I do have a card... with special instructions, just for me... I have a staff number."
M: "Can I have the card number? The 14 digit, right on the front. If I look for this book, I'll need to contact you."
Patron: "I'll call next week."
M: "What is your name, sir?"
Patron: "God." *Click*

Questions from Manifesto:

We have a patron from the psychiatric ward who comes in on a regular basis & is always spending hours typing out long documents (hence the nickname Manifesto) & always seems to lose them. Here are some of the questions he has asked over the past few weeks, notice that he seems to have some huge issues with Gmail. He also wears two pairs of pants at a time and for lunch, he'll bring in a plastic bag with six plain buns in it & occasionally a carton of milk. He has a bowl haircut that is about 2 inches above the top of his ear...we like to call it the anti-monk.

"Does Gmail work the same on the weekends as on the weekdays? I saved some emails last night and now they're not there anymore."

"I saved a document to my email, and when I came in the next day to open it, the computer told me I need a Japanese translator to open the file! Do you think my Gmail account has been hacked?"

"I just logged into all of my Gmail accounts at once, I have 3 or 4 of them, and then your computer system logged me out! Do you know what's wrong with the computers?" (Maybe just try logging into one email at a time, sir....)

"I was at another library yesterday, and I hadn't been there in a month, but when I opened up YouTube it already had me logged in!! Do you know why it would do that?" (Surprise surprise, he had logged into Gmail just before that happened.)

"Does the library always have human bones on display?"

"Are these real Mac computers?" (He then proceedes to start moving around the monitor & tower to inspect for signs on authentic "Mac-ness".)

"Do staff...monitor the security of these computers? I left for about three hours & when I came back someone had logged me off the computer and I lost all of my work." (Uh no...the computers will log you off automatically. This was also the THIRD time in a week he had come to the desk with this scenario.)

At one point he had gone past a church with a lot of people outside earlier in the day & asked one of my coworkers what she thought was going on. Her response: "maybe a choir practice!" And then he started to go on some tangent comparing a 9-5 job to religion.

Last night he had also decided that the mouse he had been using for several hours was "too greasy", so he proceeded to take a pile of hand sanitizer & start scrubbing the crap out of it. We do lysol all of our computers on a weekly basis & it got to the point where I actually had to go up to him & tell him to stop before he damaged our equipment.

Paranormal evidence @ the library.

From Lisa in Canada:

During one of my first shifts at my new library job, a friendly older gentleman approached the desk and started making small talk with me while I set him up with an internet pass. He asked me if I believed in ghosts and I said yes. He said "well then I have a treat for you!" He then pulled out his digital camera and proceeded to scroll through the pictures until he found the one he wanted. He zoomed in on something and showed me the camera. It was a photograph of a forest with a strange glowing blue orb. He explained that it was a floating eyeball, and on closer inspection it actually did look like one! At this point my coworker at the computer beside me turned her screen to face me and gave me the look. She had opened up a Word document and typed in giant letters, PLEASE STOP TALKING TO THIS MAN!!!! Later on, she told me that he was a regular who likes to us our computers to upload his ghost phenomenon photographs.

Well....I liked him!

Feces @ the library: take two.

From H.K. in Canada:

One day, apparently the public washroom on our second floor was occupied when an older lady desperately needed to use it. So instead of waiting, she decided to defecate in one of the nearby garbage cans. After doing so, she came downstairs to the circulation desk and told us what she had done, and that we should "do something about it." She then left and never came back. (Some of us speculate she was a mental patient at the nearby mental hospital.)
Luckily our janitor arrived shortly after to clean up the mess.

Science vs. religion @ the library.

From Maria who works in an Aquaculture Library:

One day we had a local scientist come in and demand our copy of the Koran (Quran). Which, obviously, we had no copy of as we are a strictly acquaculture/fisheries/ocean focused library. My coworker and I spent a good 10 minutes explaining to him that we are a science-based library with no religious materials. He then asked if we had a copy of the Bible, and if we did have a copy of the Bible, why didn't we have a copy of the Koran? (He jumped to conclusions on this one.) I then explained that we didn't hold a copy of the Bible either. He then told us that we should get one.

And that was the end of the Koran emergency - he really needed a copy of it for up in his office I guess.

Scary stuff...

Nothing is scarier than when a very weird library patron tries to use his firearms license as a form of ID.

Chat rooms @ the library.

Another one about the Facebook stalker I've mentioned previously.

Long before the Facebook stalking incident occured, when I was still a fairly new employee, she came up to me asking if I could help her with the chat program on her computer, as it wasn't working. At this point I wasn't familiar with her antics and figured she was trying to use the Ask A Librarian feature. As I get to the screen I realize it is in fact one of those creepy hookup/dating/"meet your soulmate" chat rooms (I can't remember the name) with some flashy graphic featuring all kinds of nice, lurid pictures.

My response? That the university has probably disabled the chat room because the computers are meant to be used for research and studying only (not 100% true, but whatever). To which I get the incredibly displeased and snarky reply of "OH, WELL THAT SUCKS."

I've never understood why so many people insist on looking at porn or doing other similar weird stuff on public computers...maybe its time to invest in your own computer and internet connection at home so the rest of us don't have to watch in horror. Oh, and not to mention all the other hundreds of people waiting in line to use the computers for legitimate purposes.

I've seen it all: porn and sex chatrooms (men have actually been busted masturbating under the table at our city's public library!), gambling (and other similar scams), and of course the ever-popular farmville addiction.
What kinds of strange/gross computer usage have you all had the pleasure of witnessing?

Canadian Government = Nazis?

A patron just compared the Canadian government (asking him to provide details about the equity in his recently sold home) to the nazi's pulling out gold teeth in extermination camps during World War II. He went on to give an incredibly graphic and detailed description of this. This somehow relates to him seeing me at a bus stop several months ago (this was his conversation starter), but I have no idea how and am now just thoroughly confused.

The day a patron CLIMBED THE LIBRARY

I should start with a description of the library: my city's main branch has 4 floors. One wall is composed almost entirely of windows with a type of design similar to scaffolding that extends outwards on the inside of the building over the reading terrace. Similar to this:

One day last year I came to work and shortly after the entire building was being evacuated. I looked up and there was a young man STANDING ON THE SCAFFOLDING on the fourth floor. Hence why we had to evacuate; one misstep and he could have fallen four floors down as around the reading terrace it is an open design. Shortly after the building was emptied the police and emergency services showed up and had to climb up and rescue the guy.

Apparently he and his girlfriend had gotten into an argument in the library earlier that day and she had broken up with him and told him "he should kill himself". So he climbed the scaffolding intending to jump off. But of course once he got up there, he decided that he wanted to live, but couldn't figure out how to climb back down!

Crazy library patrons: at least climb the OUTSIDE of the building. Or even better: avoid having your crazy break up arguments inside the library altogether.

Always check the shrubs

From Dee in Iowa:

Today we had a group of community service in and I had them washing the windows on the outside. They came back in with three of our cake pans that they had found in the bushes. I called the patron who said we were closed when he tried to return them last night. He added that the Rec. Center side of the building was also closed and that the pans would not fit in the drop box (not true—we tried and they fit) so he had no choice but to “hide” them in the bushes. He was going to call today to let us know where the cake pans were “hidden” but “forgot”. I was so flabbergasted that I “forgot” to remind him that he could call/e-mail or even return them to his local library and they would mail the pans back to us. I am going to do that now so he won’t need to “hide” library material from now on. Anyway, the moral of the story is always check the plantings around your library for “hidden” treasure. We are still shaking our heads in wonderment.

Talk about a privacy issue!

This is a story that I was told by a co-worker of mine a while back. To give some background on the issue: I also work at a hospital library that is also open to the general public and patients. The woman in this story comes in on a fairly regular basis and is known to get very moody and approaches library staff with some very strange requests - including this one.

One Saturday afternoon she came up to our reference librarian requesting that the librarian log on to her personal Facebook account to see if some man was "really dead". Apparently the man had blocked/deleted the patron from his Facebook for whatever reason and so she wanted to see the dates/times that he had last posted status updates because he, or someone else, claimed he had died recently (probably to get away from her). The librarian said that no, she could not do that, as it's a matter of privacy. (AKA: if you were meant to have access to information on his Facebook, you would still be on his friends list!)

The patron then proceeded to get very belligerent and told the librarian she "probably didn't know how to use Facebook anyway". She then went around and asked each of the circulation staff to log on to their Facebook accounts to spy on this man for her. None of them would do it for her either and she left very unimpressed.

I wonder if anyone else has had an experience with this issue in their own library? I can totally see creepy and "out there" people trying to use reference staff to spy on ex-partners and ex-friends.