Libraries. How many of you utilize and appreciate your local library?

Great for cruising in the pre internet days. If you spotted a guy in the art/photography section, guaranteed he was a 'mo.

Mother and I go once a month and check out books. The shelves for actual books are shrinking,yet the computer section is growing by leaps and bounds. I get it,but I still think libraries should be for books.

I do.

I mostly don't buy books anymore, but use my local library system, which is good and extensive and usually has whatever I want within two or three days of requesting it. I also support them financially. I've also run out of shelf space.

I used to love going to the library. But my local was taken over by homeless people and got infested with bedbugs so I haven't been in years.☹

love the library. Also, I love Hoopla and Libby, the apps that partner with your local/regional library.

[quote] I took the day off and spent my entire day at the library

Why?

Did you break for lunch?

R6, He took the day off to hang out and cruise the 'film and theatre' section. Banned from Grindr again.

[quote]emersed in the film and theatre reference books

[quote]I poured over old NYTimes review of movies

You might want to spend more time in the dictionary section.

I still use mine because it's a short walk from my house. Sometimes I go for traditional book check out, sometimes just to sit and work somewhere that is not my house.

I imagine a sizeable number of DLers access the site from the library's public computers.

We have to go there when DarkGeminiLord and his hysterical cohorts block us.

[quote] I also helped to barcode the entire library collection circa '93/94.

My library made that system redundant in 2003/2004 and then changed the system again twice since then.

The berry that lies!

[quote] The berry that lies!

I find the OP's story to be not quite credible.

[quote] During college I was a facility supervisor of an historical house /library.

What does a facility supervisor supervise?

My library has been taken over by homeless people as well and I now I order books online through their website and then run in and grab them at the hold desk. I don’t go in and browse any more - it’s too risky.

R16, we have absolutely no interest in you, Mary.

What do you think the homeless people are going to do to you?

Did the other recent library thread get deleted?

Anyway, librarian here (I posted some in the other thread)..thanks for supporting libraries!

R18 They eat food inside and leave greasy fingermarks on the furniture.

The inane people chatter amongst themselves.

The insane people watch junk on line and guffaw to themselves.

[quote] Anyway, librarian here

R19 Do you allow exhibitionistic strangers into your library to scare impressionable children?

I love having a library around. I haven't been in person to mine since COVID but still take ebooks out via OverDrive.

I like to fart in the reference section

I love my library for so many reasons.

And I love Libby, the e-book app that lets you reserve books and check them out from home. It's just a really pleasing piece of technology that is easy to use and just works. I also love getting the notification that I have a book ready when I had requested it two months ago and forgot about it. It seems like a lot of people discovered Libby during the pandemic.

My library also offers Hoopla, a streaming service that has a lot of 1980s-2000s movies, and Kanopy, which is sort of like the Criterion Collection.

It's one of the few public spaces left that encourages you to hang out without having to buy anything. Naturally the GOP hates it for that reason, as well as the fact it encourages curiosity and knowledge. Can't have THAT among voters.

Any librarians reading this thread — you do a great job and have my love and support.

I'm not familiar with 'Libby' and 'Hoopla' but I assume there like Internet Archive and Google Books where one can consult, download and read on line.

They seem to be sensible, efficient and inexpensive ways for people to connect with books.

Whereas I see the old-fashioned traditional system of dusty books, dirty communal spaces, anti-social customers and bored librarians as inefficient and unreasonably costly.

No more wiping boogers in the middle of hardback books

My beloved grandma, a retired teacher, lives a 15 minute walk away from the library. On weekends when I visit her, we visit the library, where she stacks up her weeks worth of reading material. It's the highlight of my week.

I love my local library, visit once a week, and support it financially. I can't imagine a world without libraries.

I have saved a fortune in buying books/DVDs by always checking if our library system has them first. I order them online and pick them up when ready. My local branch is within walking distance but tiny, so it’s not so good for browsing. I use it to make photocopies from time to time also.

Our library system has Kanopy that allows you to stream 20 free movies a month at home and it has a fantastic selection of both domestic and foreign movies. Even culty horror movies like Alice Sweet Alice!!

I live close to a library and it has become a hang out place for homeless people. I feel bad for the workers, they didn't go to school to babysit the homeless. I suppose the homeless in libraries is a "normal" thing in some areas but this is a small Canadian city.

📚 Love going to the Library. Our main library is located along the waterfront, and the view is spectacular all year long, and has a great variety of things to offer. Nice to grab a coffee and just sit by the large windows to take in the view or read a book. I still enjoy the feeling of holding a real book in my hands.

Why does the berry lie?

My favorite library branch, of course, is....

The homeless people stink and some are hostile, r18. Not all library branches have been taken over. Try a branch that is a bit farther from public transportation.

My local branch became a home away from home for retired people, many of whom were cranky, even, well, hostile. I switched to a library a bit out of the way. I can read quietly there for hours if I want. And since DVD rental stores are a thing of the past, I find some offbeat stuff through the interlibrary loan service. I pick up those requests, peruse the periodicals, then head home.

Through my very large Inter-Library loan system, I have requested many videos of older movies as well as more recent stuff I never saw. Lots of PBS series and mini-series.

I can request a hold online (from any library in the system that has the item) and my local library will email me when it has arrived at my local library. I use this method all the time.

When I'm there, I look through the newer book releases for authors I am following.

I love my library and use it all the time.

I love everything about libraries.

I'll share my funny library story here. My library has a second story that patrons rarely go to. All that's up there are staff offices and old, weird reference books. One day I did have reason to go there. I wasn't sure where the stairs were, so I took the elevator. Once I reached the second story and the doors opened, I was face-to-face with a young female staff member. She was so shocked to see someone that she let out one of the most blood-curdling screams I have ever heard. She realized everything was fine the instant she started her scream, but it was too late to prevent it. So she screamed at me while showing no emotion except for a little embarrassment.

R36, what did you do to scare this person?

R37, I didn't do anything. I think she was shocked just to see someone actually in the elevator, since no one went up there.

R36 Are you suggesting that librarians are neurotic scaredy-cats who get jobs as librarians to spend time with dusty books and avoid humans?

Librarian here again..I am laughing at the story of the screaming librarian elevator story! Totally believable. I work on the second floor in library administration, and often times when I’m getting on or off the elevator, a few of my excitable female coworkers have gasped or done a little yelp. It’s like, how have you not grasped the concept that elevators move PEOPLE from one floor to the other?? I was waiting for the elevator with a favorite coworker the other day when the doors opened and the exterminator guy was standing there. She gasped and grabbed her chest like she had just seen a ghost.

I often check out foreign-language books or reference books I use for work, and sometimes DVDs. My city's system has a streaming site, where I've seen a lot of good French movies.

As of the beginning of the year, my local library started opening late on Saturdays and on Sundays (not normal in Germany), which surprised me. The one time I visited in person since then, I saw that they'd converted the media and reading rooms to rooms with only tables and chairs--warming rooms for the homeless. Good for the homeless, but bad for everyone else. Even on the 2nd floor, the stench was inescapable.

I've always loved libraries, but I fear they're about to become obsolete.

[quote] about to become obsolete.

They're closing down in the UK.

The old-fashioned Carnegie idea is redundant in the online digital world.

[quote] saw that they'd converted the media and reading rooms to rooms with only tables and chairs--warming rooms for the homeless.

At my local library they chase away the homeless

Yeah, yeah, we have been hearing that libraries are going away since the mid 90s when the internet became available. Yet, here they still are, being used more than ever.

[quote] Libraries are a gravely underestimated public good with immense communal value. As well as providing free access to books, libraries have improved outcomes on general health, digital literacy skills, and employment skills, and build community resilience.

Librarians love making grandiose statements like this but a sensible man knows they are merely protecting their jobs.

They're grandiose statements without statistics to prove them.

For eating and wireless

I would if they were as nice as my youth. Comes down to rule enforcement. Is every homeless person aggressive to others? No. Is every large family noisy? No. But if you are, your ass does not belong in a library.

For chatting and flirting with my girlfriends.

LOUDLY.

[quote] But if you are, your ass does not belong in a library.

But a 'scaredy-cat' librarian won't remove that 'ass' from the library.

The 'scaredy-cat' librarian wants to have numbers to prove to their boss that they aren't redundant.

One time I was inside a huge library and took a dump in a remote corner

R40, those librarians sound too tender for the world.

Anyway, my nearest library is situated next to an elementary school. Kids do go there. There is or used to be a story time activity there. One night a week, it's open late. Yes, there are a handful of homeless people, but it's not disruptive. The librarians are super helpful.

R20, non-homeless people also engage in "inane chatter" and "watch junk on line and guffaw to themselves." In fact, I've been known to watch junk online and laugh to myself.

“ More people are attending programs at their public library than ever before. Total program attendance reached 125.55 million in 2019, up 23.06% since 2014 and nearly doubled since 2004. On average, 21.19 people attend each library program at US public libraries.” -wordsrated impact study, 2022

I've moved a bit and the only library I ever experienced a LOT of homeless folks was the one in downtown Madison (WI). There were some days it was just unbearable inside.

I read somewhere that a lot of librarians are now trained to administer the overdose antidote (Narcan?)

I moved to a more rural region 5 years ago but continue to renew my old library card. The online services are great. I've downloaded hundreds of audiobooks, recommending new ones for purchase as they come out. Technically they're checked out for a limited period, but seems to be no DRM, the mp3's have no expiry. Same with ebooks, as long as the kindle is updated manually without syncing.

Oh yeah, then there's the Kanopy video streaming service, thousands of ad free movies, with a pretty good and obscure LGBT selection. It's kind of great.

It sucks when local governments cut library funds

I love my library tote bag. I bought 5 @ 2$ / piece

[quote] More people are attending programs at their public library than ever before.

I noticed this at my local library. There definitely has been a "post" pandemic/ lockdown surge of library recipients.

Library addict here. Go several times a week. Sometimes more often. To my local branch, to distant branches, to branches I’ve never been to before. And I always check out the libraries when I travel. I have sometimes chosen travel destinations because of their libraries.

F*** the mayor and his planned cuts to the libraries.

Many years ago, I was lucky to be able to spend a few months working in this library.

At my local library, they removed the cushion on the benches to avoid homeless from using it as a bed to nap.

Libraries are great. I haven't been to one in a few years due to limited transportation and can get any info and books I want off the internet. I wish I could still haunt them like I used to

I love the local library. Patrons get free access to electronic versions of local and regional newspapers. Same with access to everything Hoopla (no, not *that* Hoopla) and CloudLibrary has.

R58- favorites? I love NYC main library on 5th, naturally. I've been to UofP's as a student as well as SUNY Albany, albeit, more than 20 years ago. I lived in Winnipeg for a time and their main library is wonderful. But, my favorites are the small, in small towns libraries, the charming and quaint kind.

The reason the homeless seek out libraries is because there is nowhere else for them to go in a lot of localities, especially when it's cold or hot out. Those complaining and/or avoiding their libraries due to this should work in the communities to have church basements, old hotels, and unused retail buildings, etc., used as daytime warming/cooling places for the homeless. Staff them with a couple social workers, too, to maybe help the homeless get out of their situation. Libraries can't kick them out unless they are very disruptive because they are government agencies so giving them somewhere else to go is the only option much of the time. Take that to your local government if you want to help with this problem.

[quote]Librarians love making grandiose statements like this but a sensible man knows they are merely protecting their jobs.

[quote]Whereas I see the old-fashioned traditional system of dusty books, dirty communal spaces, anti-social customers and bored librarians as inefficient and unreasonably costly.

Pure ignorance on full display.

[quote] Technically they're checked out for a limited period, but seems to be no DRM

I bet most of us don't know what a DRM is.

Digital Rights Management - controls who has access to digital content - often employed by creators or distributors to prevent file sharing - or limiting the time it can be accessed.

Allows for the difference between renting and owning - or loaning and giving. And in this case, borrowing and keeping.

I visit my local liberace as often as I can

[quote]I've always loved libraries, but I fear they're about to become obsolete.

The library around the corner from me (where I've yet to encounter a homeless person) has an RFP out to construction firms for a project to triple its size.

I go to libraries in Virginia, New Jersey, and Michigan for an online database project I am contributing to. I go to libraries in the inner-city, in the suburbs, tiny libraries smaller than my apartment, and giant libraries bigger than the building where I work. Libraries are awesome and essential.

(I just wish they did a better job cataloguing things...)

I was just at the library yesterday to cruise

Another big use of libraries are the public meeting rooms. These are in high demand by local groups. Many libraries even let people use them after hours, if there are separate entrances and there is no access into the library proper.

My library now offers access to Transparent Language. I have been studying Czech—so I can understand what my neighbors are saying to each other!

I do. Why pay $30 for a book? I have no desire to own them once read. Also movies that are not streaming or cost money to rent are freed on DVD; for me, the LA County library system has a huge selection.

When I was young and traveled frequently,I always made it a point to go to a Carnegie library. Some of them were just beautiful. I loved going to a small town like Sedalia Mo and seeing gorgeous Carnegie libraries. As an aside,the one in Sedalia had a periodical section with magazines all the way back to the early 1900s. I spent many an hour thumbing thru those.

[quote] I spent many an hour thumbing thru those.

But did you actually … read a book?

[quote] The library around the corner from me has an RFP out to construction firms for a project to triple its size.

It is like most new "library centres". They need extra space for a coffee shop, lounge rooms, a clown-performance room, a needle-exchange room and shooting-up toilets.

Therapy dog room

My library has a reading club and a writing club.

My pussy stinks

All the homeless in my city hangout in the public libraries.

Small town library with small minds and smaller books. No, don’t go. Why bother? Bitchy librarians and rows of James Peterson, romance, and mysteries. I feel like throwing myself down a well whenever I go there, every three years…

My city claims it's library is a 'Center of Excellence'.

It is a center for growling, farting druggies who don't know to read.

[quote]Those complaining and/or avoiding their libraries due to this should work in the communities

Thanks for the sanctimony, bitch. Guess what? I've been homeless myself. I bathed. I did not bother other people. And non-homeless people should not be obliged to solve homelessness in order to enjoy public libraries.

[quote] The reason the homeless seek out libraries is because there is nowhere else for them to go…

And the librarians are passive wimps who are too scared to eject them.

And the passive wimps need to justify their pay by telling their employers that they have large numbers of "customers" in order to justify their continued employment.

Well, SMELL Miss R84!

My library has brats on the computers all the time. Noisey little monsters.

^ Long ago I was once forced to sit next to one of those brats for 30 minutes.

Its nostrils and throat were full of mucus which it constantly snivelled down and coughed up over those 30 minutes.

Libraries are still good cruising spots...

Oh, R89, do you display your volume in the book stacks?

R89, do you have a softcover or a hardback?

R84/R85 is an anti-library troll. Who would have thought we'd have an anti-library troll? Funniest part is that it probably lived/lives under an actual bridge.

Mother used to take me to the children's library starting when i was about six or seven. I'm a writer today. Thank you mom!

Going to visit my local library this week

You don't have to hang out in the library. Just order what you want online, then go pick it up.

If you are ever in Mexico City, check out (pun intended) the amazing Biblioteca Vasconcelos.

R94 make your once a month trip out of your cave worthwhile.

read!

[quote] Who would have thought…

Well I never.

Thank you to whoever mentioned Transparent Language Online. It's excellent.

I used to live in a city with a downtown library that was a cesspool. there was a coffee shop inside so id be in there everyday and it was nothing but hobos. they'd sit in the lobby panhandling. the front of the building smelled like urine

No, r92, you idiot. I'm PRO library. Perhaps you should spend more time in libraries. You might learn to follow an argument.

Libraries are the best places in every city.

Blue skies are the best places in every place.

you are deemed a city, if you have a library that you invest in. If not, NOPE. Florida should be declassified as a state for what desantis is doing. Fucking Fascist. The Republican Party is the modern day Nazi Party.

[quote] I miss studying and losing oneself in useless knowledge obtained from books.

OP, are you using the right adjective there?

Why hasn't this perfectly quintessential and accurate video not been posted?

I have two books on loan at the moment. I love the self-checkout kiosks and how I can search the entire catalogue online to see where books are in the library network so sometimes I'll go on a walk or a trip to a library I haven't been to before.

[quote] I love the self-checkout kiosks

Me too. I don't like having to deal with condescending or wacky staff members looking at what books I decide to borrow.

I'm a live-in caregiver for my mom who has Alzheimer's, and we both love the library. We are usually there a few times a week, however, the weather this winter has been awful and it's difficult to take her out in the cold, so we haven't been there as much lately. I took my niece to get her first library card last year and I take her regularly too. She loves it too.

When I lived in LA. The libraries were a magnet for the homeless and mentally ill.

R89 Your lewd behavior is mentioned in R111's link.

It was most likely a charismatic, but failed, Gay young actor who set fire to the main downtown Los Angeles library completely destroying it. He was the primary suspect and by all accounts he was there that day. He died of AIDS in his early 30s within about four years of the event and it remains unsolved.

Precious book collections should be kept separate from ratbag hobos and lunatics.

Things will be safer when they're kept out in the streets and genuine book readers can use digital books or do 'click-and-collect'.

Hey r109, we don’t give a shit what you check out.

OK, R115.

Are you Miss Condescending? Or, perhaps, you're Miss Wacky?

She just wants to do a good job!

R116, she sounds like Miss Reality. You on the other hand...

I have had a librarian look down at me for my choice of book before though. Didn't like that. So I agree that most don't care but there's always one or two who do and make disparaging comments or judge you.

Not as bad as the checkout people at the supermarket who used to shame people for buying the Sunday NYT. “$5??? Did you really mean to buy that??”

Cross-posting from the Boring Celeb Encounters thread:

Not boring but not all that exciting, either. I was in line at Lamont (Harvard’s undergrad library) about an hour ago picking up my copy of “Lily Savage: An A to Z Thing” that I requested yesterday having read about Paul O’Grady’s death on Wednesday. It’s a fairly lurid cover: our Lady of the Leopardskins against a shocking pink background so easily noticed by the guy behind me in line at the desk who says, “She died the other day, you know.” I said, “Yeah, that’s why I got it” before realizing I was talking to Conan O’Brien.

He said he spent a lot of time there as a student, was walking by, and wanted to see what it looked like these days. He was friendly and polite to everyone including the guard at the door and the kids working the desk were beside themselves over their brush with fame on a quiet Thursday afternoon.

When I returned Mark Helprin's [italic]Winter's Tale[/italic], the librarian asked me if I had really read it. (Yes, I had.) Another time, when checking out the DVD for [italic]Deadpool[/italic], the librarian exclaimed in amazement that I hadn't seen it. She advised me to pop a lot of popcorn and settle in to watch it. I think those are the only two times librarians have given a damn what I check out over my decades of library use.

R122 The Impertinence!

Servants are to be seen but not heard.

I love to use the restroom at my pubic library

I love to excrete with others.

I love to inject with others.

All libraries supply those yellow plastic bins.

I have been a librarian for over 20 years and I have rarely ever even registered what I am checking out to someone. Part of it is to just keep the line moving if we are busy, but mostly it’s because it’s not our job to pass judgement/remark on anyone’s reading choices, unless asked for a recommendation.

That said, I am not belittling anyone’s bad library experiences. I know it happens. I think (*hope*) that all the people I supervise are kind and supportive and helpful to anyone who comes in…but I’m sure they are not, 100% of the time. Because, humans.

I frequently visit public libraries when I travel, and I have experienced some very not nice treatment, on rare occasions. The majority of library workers are helpful to anyone who comes in, in my experience. BUT..the cuntiest library staff I’ve ever dealt with was at the public library on Catalina Island!

For any of you who have had bad library experiences in the past…PLEASE keep trying until you find a nice library!

[quote] I took the day off and spent my entire day at the library, emersed in the film and theatre reference books.

My library was a life/job saver when I was homeless. I was the one who reeked of weed, Folks.

Now that I have a jerb and apartment, I still visit that library a few times a week for glossy magazines and new fiction I’ll never bother checking out unless it’s a grabber.

[quote]Now that I have a jerb

A job selling herb?