This happened when I was studying history and ethnology at the University of Iceland in 2011 or 2012. We had gotten some sort of task that demanded that we go to the university library to find different books to study to deal with the task.

Off I went and borrowed different books, some new and some quite old.

After I got back to my apartment and started reading, I quickly noticed that one of the books was not possible to read. Almost all the pages were still uncut!

For those who might not know, books — especially back in the day — used to be made up of double or more folded sheets of paper. After the binding was done, the pages would be physically cut on the edges in order to make it possible to read them. That’s why quite many old books might have some rough edges on them.

This book was at least fifty years old, yellow from age, and clearly not something the library had gotten recently — but I was apparently the very first one to actually open and read this book since it had been placed on the shelf.

In theory, I could just have cut the pages myself and the library would never have known the difference, but I decided to go back and show them at the library. None of the librarians had ever witnessed anything like this before, but it most definitely did amuse us.

I learned long ago how to study effectively for tests. I was in college and needed to study for an upcoming test, so I was in the local library at a single table. I had everything spread out and color-coded with colored pens, pencils, markers, and highlighters. I was absorbed by what I was doing.

A sweet, adorable little girl came up to me.

Girl: *Politely* “Could I use some of your paper and colored pencils, please?”

Me: “No, sorry. I’m using them.”

She smiled and nodded and went back to her mom. I was about to go back to studying when her mom appeared by my side looking angry as h***.

Mom: “Either let my daughter use your things or put them them away!”

Her daughter looked miserable and embarrassed. I felt really sorry for her. I just stared at the woman in complete surprise at the sheer entitlement. I had heard stories of similar people but thought that it was exaggerated.

Me: “Leave me alone and go away.”

Mom: “You are being disrespectful to your elder!”

Me: *Rolling my eyes* “B****, I am at least a few years older than you!”

She started screaming, which brought the librarian over. Y’all, I have never seen this woman be tough. I thought she was a pushover; she was so sweet and treated everyone like they were her babies. She was like the grandma everyone wanted.

But now, she went from sweet grandma to raging bada**. She scared me worse than the time I got mock-charged by a mama bear.

Librarian: “What did I tell you about coming here again?! Your daughter is welcome to come here! You are not! You have been banned from here for harassing everyone! Get out now!”

I’m pretty sure my eyes were popping out of my face. I was definitely slack-jawed. The entitled mom was backing up pretty fast.

Then, in a split second, [Librarian] went from raging bada** back to sweet elderly grandma. She gave the little girl a hug and a kiss on her forehead, and then she came over to me to see if I was okay and grinned at my shocked face.

Librarian: “I always let people think that I’m too sweet to be tough. The surprise is effective.”

I nodded and started packing up my things.

Me: “I’ll never be able to refocus on my studies after that!”

I am a therapist working with children with learning difficulties, such as dyslexia and dyscalculia. I was having an intake interview with a new client, a nine-year-old girl with reading issues — she was a year and a half behind her peers — and her mother who accompanied her.

The girl told me that she hated reading, she thought it was boring, she didn’t like the stories, it was too difficult, et cetera. This is a typical answer I get from most kids with reading difficulties. When I asked her what shows she liked watching, she told me that she liked to watch exciting shows with lots of adventures. I also asked the girl and her mom whether or not they visited the local library. The mother told me that they didn’t because the girl doesn’t like reading, so the mom ended up buying her a few smaller books with large letters. She did this with the best of intentions, but it’s rare for this type of book to have exciting and adventurous stories.

When I told the girl about adventurous books for people with reading issues and the fact that she could borrow multiple books at the library for free, her eyes started to shine! She added that she liked funny pictures and special letters.

I told her that there were probably over a thousand books with exciting stories for children all over the world that she hadn’t read yet. I also pointed her toward a Dutch book series specifically made for children with dyslexia who want adventurous and exciting stories to read, as well as a book series “written” by an Italian mouse.

I swear that I haven’t seen any client get this excited over hearing about books in my entire career! It was genuinely heartwarming to see the glow in her eyes growing with every passing second. She immediately asked me to write some titles down and wanted to know when her local library was open. When she heard that the library was going to be closed before she had a chance to go, she was visibly disappointed. However, when I told her that the library was also open on the next day, a Saturday, she was ecstatic!

She went home with a massive smile on her face, and I can’t wait to see her again and hear about her first adventure in her local jungle of books!

I work in a library with a lot of branches and poor communication between them.

One morning, we got an email from the department at our central location that is in charge of all our cataloging. They told us to send them all of our Disney books, and my boss put me in charge of this project. Realizing that a lot of our books could be defined as “Disney”, I sent a reply email asking for clarification and what their plans were with our items.

The cataloging department replied, “Send us everything; we’ll sort it out. You don’t need to know what we’re doing with it.”

So, I sent them everything that could be defined as a Disney book. I boxed up all of our Disney character-related picture books and all of the chapter books connected to Disney movies and TV shows. I also boxed up everything published by Disney-Hyperion, as well as all of our non-fiction that was connected to Disney: Walt Disney’s biographies, vacation guides to Disney World, how to draw Disney character books, etc. I gathered up all the books that belong to Disney franchises, including Marvel and Star Wars. This meant all of the Avengers and Star Wars kids’ books, teen books, adult books, and graphic novels got boxed up, as well.

I spent hours on this, and by the time I was done, there were dozens of boxes of books. My boss just shrugged and shipped them out via our inner-library delivery system.

I don’t think the cataloguers were very happy with me, but I never heard a word of complaint. Most of the items were sent back within a few days.

The big secret project the cataloging department was planning? They relabeled all of our children’s picture books that featured Disney characters as “Dis.” Why they just couldn’t tell us this from the beginning I do not know.

At 10:00am, a patron comes up to the library service desk where we book private study rooms.

Patron: “Hi. Can I get a study room for an hour? I have a Zoom meeting.”

Me: “Sure, let me take a look at what we have available. Are you looking to start now?”

Patron: “Yes, for an hour.”

Me: “Okay, perfect. Room 209 is all yours from 10:00 to 11:00.”

Patron: *In a snide tone* “Uh, no. I need it until 11:30.”

Me: “Oh, I thought you said you needed an hour, starting now.”

Patron: “Well, I’ll need time to finish up after my meeting, obviously.”

Me: *Trying not to sigh* “Okay, if you want a room for an hour and a half, then I’ll need to assign you a different room.”

Patron: “It’s really not that complicated.”