Busted!

A woman in Michigan was fired from her library job for writing a book about all the nutty things that go on and all the colorful patrons she deals with. Or dealt with, since she was fired. This article was emailed to me and some other staff by Melissa, our A/V librarian. Hmm. That makes me a little bit paranoid. Number one, I don't write under a pseudonym. Number two, I write about amusing patrons. I realize I have not disclosed the library I work at, but it's not that tricky to figure out, methinks.

However, I am not looking to make money from my patron stories. Fact.

I will be more judicious.

Ex libris,

Marissa

Unshelved.

The comic there is yesterday's daily strip from Unshelved, the library comic strip. It is so funny, but yesterday's particularly got me because of the officer's desire to leave quickly without cleaning up the mess she made. I have totally turned into a library nerd because my first thought was, "She doesn't know the Dewey Decimal System! She'd shelve everything wrong and I would have to track it all down!"

HA. Shelving supervisor I am!

Ex libris,

Marissa

Reading while intoxicated.

My good friend Chris posted this hilarious video clip on my Facebook the other day, and I had to include it here.

Then my friend Michelle watched it and was like, "Oh no, Marissa will have to reshelve all those books!" And I would. But I might die laughing first if someone slid into a bookcase after reading while intoxicated.

Hilarious.

Marissa

Patron stories: Laying down the law

A Wisconsin woman was arrested for failing to pay her library fines. Apparently her fines amounted to about thirty dollars, but she ended up having to pay for bail in addition.

Thirty dollars? We have some patrons who owe us more than $100! We need some of those Wisconsin cops to show Connecticut cops how it's done.

Ex libris,

Marissa

Teens and tweens

I was shelving over in the teen library today and I was overwhelmed by all the materials available. When I was growing up (which wasn't too long ago but things change so quickly) there was not really a genre for teenagers. There was Judy Blume and that was about it. Now there is so much available for so many reading levels and interests. I like to think that adults and their older kids are reading together and some dialogue is happening, because a lot of adults seem to like the young adult genre.

I sort of skipped from younger books to adult mysteries. I remember picking up a Mary Higgins Clark book in the sixth grade. Once high school rolled around, I was in honors and AP English, so I read the books for those classes, and in college I read just about every genre of literature for my English major. I wish there had been the teen/young adult genre when I was younger. I am reading these books now in order to make up for lost time, I suppose! I read The Book Thief last winter and it was so excellent. Another good one was Life as We Knew It. Teenagers now seem so much more worldly than they were ten years ago, and literature has adapted to them. It sounds old-ladyish to say it, but I hope they appreciate all the materials available now. It will be interesting to see how things change in the next ten years.

Ex libris,

Marissa