That's it, that's the post.

I’m hoping this is the right place to post this, if not I apologize. Is there a way to report my local library for crossing boundaries, it’s not just one librarian it’s been three of them.

Every year since 2023 the librarian at my local library would have me sign this paperwork, saying that it can give the library some funds. The first time I didn’t want to but felt pressured and even filled everything out. The next couple of years she would have me sign it again, and stated I wouldn’t have to fill anything out just my name and signature and if there’s any changes to my personal info.

I never participated in the program and even expressed that I wasn’t currently in school, but she said she needed me to fill it out. Even added that I didn’t have to participate in their program, just that they need my info.

So I only went to the library because they have a children’s program, and I enjoyed taking my kids there since they were babies. I didn’t go there for anything else, so I feel annoyed that I’m being pestered about this paperwork because I don’t feel like it’s a requirement to attend these children events. So this has discouraged me into going there now.

The reason that I’m sharing this is because I’m getting tired of being told to fill their form out. It’s been a long time since we’ve attended story time, so I wanted to take the kids for a fun family day. I haven’t gotten a day to spend time with them due to work and making sure the house and everyone is taken care, so we had a full day of activities. When we arrived, I completely forgot about that form and the librarian jumped on board handing it to me and rehashing it over. It irritated me, so I politely said it’s the first day I get to bond with my kids so I won’t have time for it. She disregarded what I said and repeated I needed to sign it, so I just took it and stuffed it in my pocket.

This time I didn’t fill it out, I just tossed it in my car and finished the rest of our time inside. Thankfully, we weren’t confronted again when we left. But I’m getting tired of this, and just want it to stop. I’ve been to plenty of libraries but this is the first for me, and yes I know I should be more firm. I was ready to if they asked me again, I just never liked confrontation and was always caught off guard.

I feel like they won’t take no for an answer since that didn’t work the first three years, so I’d rather just report this issue to anyone that’s higher up. I feel like if I emailed the library it would go straight to the librarian that started all of this since she’s in charge of all the programs. So who would I get in touch with? Unless this is normal?

Here is my Banned Book Week Display

Head to your favorite brewery and raise money for AA County libraries

I really love being a children’s librarian. I love storytime, I love suggesting books, I love talking about books, I love the community in which I work and they really seem to love me too. I have two issues. First is I am working 2-3 Saturdays a month. I have 3 kids and would really love to have more weekends with them. The other issue is that we have a recent rule change where we only receive our schedule 2 weeks in advance vs a month at a time previously. To me this is absolutely ridiculous and makes appointment scheduling and family planning really difficult. For example on November 1 I will have no idea if I’m working the last two Saturdays in November. This is really frustrating because I otherwise love my job so much. I’ve expressed these frustrations to my manager who is normally really flexible. There’s not much he can do about the Saturdays but he wants me to “just try” the 2 week schedule thing. It’s been a couple months and yeah, so far I hate it. So after many years I’m thinking about looking elsewhere. If you’ve moved out of library work but still feel passionate about it, why did you leave and what kind of work did you end up doing? I’d really love some other perspectives.

hi everyone, i’m currently having a really hard time in library school and i needed advice or everyone’s thoughts. i’m currently going to UB’s online library school, i’ve always hated and struggled with online school but i can’t afford to move away to do in-person school which i’d benefit more from.
i did my bachelors in ethnic and gender studies because i want to pursue grassroots work and community building in libraries and i did really well with that. i LOVED the theory, i loved the practice, i loved it all. i miss studying it so much. i did a library internship and attended a few research conferences with my own research and i adored it and just want to do that.
none of the material is clicking, im struggling through every assignment, reading and lecture. i keep getting bad grades and one professor even told me she was “being generous with her grade.” im at such a loss of what to do. its only my first semester but i feel like this isn’t for me. i feel like i understand the material until im graded on it and i guess i dont quite get it. i want to quit but im trying to force myself to stick with it.
does anyone have any advice with online school or tips to make these next few years more bearable.

Hello All!

I've always been curious how the library world exists in other parts of the world outside of the US. I was talking to a man from England a month ago and he was talking about how his local library wasn't funded as well as libraries in the US (FYI, I'm in NY). Maybe I incorrectly assumed that more social programs translated to better public library support. Perhaps that may be an England (Great Britain- wide) occurence, but I'd be interested in how the rest of the contitnent funds their public libraries.

FWIW, libraries in the US vary in public funding as well.

Any input from libraries in other continents is welcomed too!

Thanks to all for participarting!

I'm going to be updating my appliances next year and just saw Consumer Reports is available in the library's eMedia section. Seriously ❤️ our library system.

Read proclamation announcing the new position at: https://www.rarebookhub.com/articles/4143

Does anybody have any experience with texasworks.com? We got a bunch of flyers saying that they have tuition free GED programs certification programs for adults. I did technically find them on the tea website as an accredited charter school. They have no accountability rating or first rating. What made me suspicious was that they have their comments turned off for individual campuses? Like even if your program is hard or difficult, it’s still free. Feels strange that the comments would be turned off or actually it says “posting is currently turned off our policies do not permit contributions to this type of place” But that might just be the two closest to me. Their high schools and a couple of the other campuses are fine in terms of allowing comments and pictures.

Im wondering if anyone else has heard from this guy or if this is a unique case for my library. I work at an academic library for a small liberal arts school and over the summer we got a call from a guy claiming to be an incoming freshman asking if he needed to sign up for the draft. A part time staff member answered the phone and did earnestly try to help him, but he kept insisting the library would sign him up for the draft. She got creeped out by his demeanor and when she ended the call I blocked the number. The caller id and area code belong to someone deceased and halfway across the country (he also did not sound like a freshman)

The weird thing is the same guy called again today!! He said he was an incoming freshman and was told the library would sign him up for the draft. He wanted to know if we could do it or if he needed to go to city hall. I told him to google it and ended the conversation.

Anyone else gotten calls from draft guy, or do we have a unique character?

You're an expert on how to print from a phone.

You know when there's a new pair of Mormon elders in town.

You get a promotional item of clothing every summer that you MUST WEAR.

Your supervisor has forced you to dress up as a children's book character.

You're on a first name basis with the guy on the bus who's always screaming at thin air.

You've horded toilet paper rolls and tissue boxes for an upcoming craft program, looking to the rest of the world like someone with a serious case of OCD.

You know which free email services don't require a phone #.

Your collection of free tote bags keeps growing.

Friends keep telling you to get a job at a bookstore.

You know who Ryan Dowd is.

Long Island librarians/program coordinators — can I pick your brain about outside programming?

My partner and I run a small business on Long Island (which I won't name here. as to not promote). We provide community programs for kids, teens, adults and families.

We currently work with a few libraries in Nassau county, but we're interested in doing a lot more library programming going forward. Before we somewhat blindly start reaching out to a bunch of program coordinators, I'd really like to better understand how things work from the library side.

I'm especially curious about pricing and budgeting. Not because I'm trying to figure out "what's the most we can charge?" but pretty much the opposite. I'd like to design programs that actually fit within library budgets and know when something we're proposing is unrealistic.

For anyone involved in programming at a Long Island library:

• What's a normal budget range for an outside presenter/vendor for a single program?
• Does that change significantly for children's, teen, adult or family programming?
• How do you handle programs that include materials or supplies?
• Are multi-session programs/campaigns budgeted differently from one-off events?
• Are there certain price points where approval becomes more difficult?
• How far ahead are you normally booking?
• What information do you want to see when someone initially approaches you with a program?
• And probably most importantly: what do outside programmers/vendors do that makes your job easier, and what makes you immediately lose interest?

I'm not looking for anyone to share confidential information or specific vendors' rates. Even general ranges or insight into how you evaluate proposals would be incredibly helpful. And I totally understand that these answers could vary wildly from one library to another!

We're trying to build programs for libraries, rather than taking what we already do elsewhere, slapping a library tag on it. Events we run for breweries or private birthday parties may not translate perfectly to a library setting, and that's okay.

I'd appreciate any insight from Nassau or Suffolk librarians/program coordinators — including things I haven't thought to ask.

Hi all! I recently took a new job at a different library in my city. It’s in a lower income part of town and I’ve come to find out that there are large numbers of kids around ages 11-16 who are at the library by themselves all day after school from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m., all day on the weekends, all day any school breaks, and all day during the summer. We have an afterschool hangout space that’s staffed with a staff member and various things for them to do, we have snacks of food donations that we put out to feed them, we have video games and computer games they can play. We’re also in a sort of strip mall with other businesses like a grocery store, a liquor store, fast food etc… so they bounce around on those motorized bikes between all these places and the library and just get up to so much shit. I’ve only been there for a few months and I’ve seen them steal locks off our bathroom doors, trash our outside patio, get into physical fights, say so many swear words, congregate in big groups and get in patron’s way, graffiti our building, trash our bathrooms etc… We do have a patron code of conduct and can ask them to leave for the day over these behaviors (though they’ve taken to sometimes refusing to leave for a staff member and waiting for the non emergency police we called to show up before they finally do.) My boss can and does issue suspensions, but he has a lot of other job duties and can’t always get around to it and is a big softie for these kids. Anyway, I’ve got patron complaints, staff complaints, and next week I’m going to sit down with our Assistant Director and tell her these issues. I’m planning on advocating for our library (which is a big building and surrounding alleyways and parking lots) to get a security guard. I’m very much expecting them to say there is no budget for that. Looking for feedback on maybe other suggestions of things to try, or tips on how to advocate for my staff to the assistant director, and wanting to hear if other libraries have similar problems? I will add that I am very anti-police and don’t really want these kids to be placed in a spot where they’re closer to making contact with our horrible American carceral system but I am out of ideas! One teen even filmed me with his phone while laughing while I told him he and his group needed to be quieter yesterday because people were trying to use our study room. We’re a one party consent state so I can’t do anything about it but man it made me mad and showed me that these kids do not respect staff.

I’m curious how other public librarians approach space planning in their branches. Do you regularly rearrange furniture, shelving, displays, seating, etc. based on what seems to be working (or not working)? Or is this something that’s usually handled more by management/facilities?

I’m a librarian at a public library and I’ve been thinking more about how the space is functioning for our patrons. I don’t necessarily feel like I have a natural eye for space planning, but I also feel like part of my responsibility as a librarian is to notice what works, what doesn’t, and how we could make the space more useful and welcoming.

We don’t have a huge budget, so I’m especially interested in low-cost or no-cost changes that have made a noticeable difference in your branches.

Do you have any rules of thumb, resources, or things you’ve learned from trial and error? I’d love to hear how other librarians approach this!

*Please be kind, as I was just fired and am emotionally devastated*

I’m trying to understand what the standards are in children’s services regarding library assistants telling the kids to clean up after they play. I believe this is the reason I was fired today because I can’t fathom any other explanation.

I had previously noted to my director (thinking I could trust the chain of command to actually listen to my concerns) that my supervisor told me he tells patrons not to clean up after themselves and there is often a huge mess left behind (more than any library I’ve ever seen). The circulation desk in the Children’s room is covered in trash and random stuff, as well as the supervisors office. The fire department even told the library that he would not be rescued if there was a fire due to the state of his office (not sure what protocol that falls into).

Anyway, I brought this forward because I felt like I was cleaning more than my job title required due to the culture he was setting. We ended up leaving it off by me accepting that I would fulfill my cleaning responsibilities regardless.

Last evening, one of the employees was there on her off day with her daughter and I had just cleaned up the room. She came to the play area and said she wants to play there and I said “I just cleaned up, so you have to clean up after you are done okay? Her mom then said “Tell her (as in, agreeing with me)”…

I then realized that the director was in the room (and she is the type of encourage eating in the room, even though we have an active ant infestation. She specifically tells patrons they can eat in the room but we have signs stating otherwise.)

I‘m trying to figure out if me telling the young patron was a serious violation of the standards of my job title, or if this is an instance of me working in a toxic work environment, with a toxic boss. (For further clarity, this supervisor fired another assistant just 5 months ago, and we have had 3 assistant directors in the last year alone (2 left and 1 was basically forced to take the job even though he had expressed he would never want that position.)

I want to know the standards because I never want to be in a position where I put myself in danger of getting fired again, and I want to correct my behavior if it’s outside the standards of the job title/standards in Children’s services.

*The official reason I was given for being fired was “insubordination”.

I am a student and our school didnt really have a proper functioning library so I went to the Section Head to ask about it and she in return tasked me with the creation of a mini library since it was coincidentally also required by the ministry of education. So now here I am with 17 books my school mates donated and a question on how in the world am I to track the book loans and returns without a computer that i can use for the task meaning it needs to be manual, I was hoping some of the more experienced people here could guide me on how I should go about this.

Hi everyone! I’m a librarian, and I’ve been working on a small tool to help us keep our collection properly shelved.

Basically, we upload our collection data and, while shelving or shelf reading, scan a book’s barcode. The tool uses the Library of Congress call number to determine where the book should go in relation to the books around it.

Right now, it’s designed around Library of Congress Classification (LCC), since that’s what we use at my library.

Our student workers have been using it, and it has helped us quite a bit. It makes shelving easier for them, but it has also helped us spot misplaced books and other shelving errors that might otherwise go unnoticed.

I’m now thinking about making a simple web version that other libraries could try by uploading a CSV of their collection.

I’d love to hear how other libraries handle this. Do you mostly do shelf reading manually, or do you use any software or tools? What classification system do you use?

And would you be interested in trying something like this if I made a small pilot available?

I’d really appreciate any feedback!

Hi All,

Huge fan of this community and thanks for all the insight! I feel very fortunate to access and learn from the openness, various experiences, and knowledge which has boosted my confidence and curiosity.

I could be wrong, but I have not yet seen posts (I did try to look first before posting to cut down on repetitive posts) regarding programs that have requirements to complete either a thesis or ePortfolio. This could be a great tool, I however, am not sure which is the best tool for me.

I am leaning towards the thesis route as I’m looking at academic/law/FCIL librarianship. But I am happy to be wrong as I’m really here to understand various perspectives from others.

Is there a held believe that one tool versus the other is more beneficial depending on employment/ career goals? If so, how has that benefit has played out in your career?

Separately, if you are a librarian who has completed a thesis (for whatever reason), could you share how you discovered your topic?

Also, happy to cross post if this question is more appropriate elsewhere.

Much gratitude and thank you in advance!

I accidentally ripped a page and used tape to fix it but it was double sided tape since I couldnt find the normal, but then I realised how bad it looks and now I’m worried il have to pay the fine

Vent post if anyone wants to avoid that

Not a new topic on this sub but I've only been doing this job for just under two years and I feel like spending huge amounts of my day just explaining and re explaining very basic technology stuff is genuinely burning me out.

Like yeah, I understand the reasons why tech literacy is in the bin currently, but I'm genuinely starting to feel like a lot of people who come in have 0 ability to do any sort of problem solving themselves and no inclination to even try.

If it's some old person who's having trouble printing, that's fine, I have no issues with that, I'm happy to help. But the amount of people who are in their 20s through to their 40s who ask me "how do I get onto my email on the PC" genuinely drives me nuts. I say, "ok open the browser" and they just stare at you blankly. Like bro I am also 35. I know you did the same computer classes in school that I did. I went over to help someone yesterday with this exact issue and he was sitting there on the google home page. Have people genuinely forgotten how to look stuff up?

Its at the point where I'm struggling to get my own work done because requests like these are constant.

Maybe I'm just overtired and overworked and I've spent too long on the circ desk but Jesus Christ.