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Do creepy people have a homing device...
...for the public library?
You have to wonder. As a public librarian, I've got a number of stories, funny and horrific, but I've been out of the game for a little while. Today I was reminded that - despite the fact that 99% of the people who use the library are normal and nice - it never fails to attract the crazies too.
I'm not giving out my source, but I have it on good authority that a local public library has had to pull all of the juvenile ballet titles off the shelf and put them behind the reference desk because - and this is the horrible part - they kept finding all the little girls' ballerina books in a certain men's bathroom stall.
Too creepy.
When I was a graduate student in library school we had streakers and we had homeless people who slept overnight in the stacks. We had guys who would make sweet love to themselves in the study carrels and leave presents behind. When I was a full-fledged librarian at my first library we had a patron whose colostomy bag broke all over the floor - after which he simply walked out. We had any number of poorly toileted individuals who used our restrooms. I've cleaned up vomit and wiped feces off the floor and walls. But today's story makes the rest just seem...tame. I like to think I have a goodly amount of tolerance for the mentally ill, but pedophilia makes my skin crawl and makes me never want to send my little boy out in the Big Bad world. It's also the kind of story that should make any parent hesitate to leave their children unattended at the library. It's not just for bookworms anymore.
Unfortunately.
I soooo agree. Going to the library is essential for children, but I can
promise my small boys will never be unattended. We spend alot of time
there in the summer and it does seem like it is a magnet for some strange
people. I thought I was the only one who felt that way.
Heather
I work in a bookstore, and I could tell the same stories as well as many
more. It's a scary world out there, and when a place is open to the
public...
Ugh, hate to share this story but when I was younger (12ish?), I was
reading in a library carrel and I swear a man crawled under the table to
look up my skirt. I felt someone breathing on my knee but thought I was
imagining things. But it happened again so I pulled back to look under and
sure enough, someone was there.
Now I wish I'd screamed bloody murder, but at the time I just thought,
eeew, gotta get outta here and took off.