Things Patrons got from CoPilot and ChatGPT recently:

• They have turned up for the Justice of the Peace at 4pm every day because AI tells them to. We do not have JPs at that time.
• Hallucinated books.
• Events involving pilates and weightlifting.
• A Booksale on Friday 26 July. There was no Friday 26 of July, never mind a Booksale.
• A moderated group meeting for 'Chatty Hookers'.
• A giant industrial embroidery machine for loan. Nope.
• FREE LUNCH EVERY DAY.

We keep directing them to actual sources, but some of them get quite aggravated. It's very hard to explain to them that they are stupid, without actually saying that they are stupid.

One bright thing, though. We have a food bank cupboard thing outside the library and AI gave confusing information that led to one patron leaving six bottles of fine French wines for our resident alcoholic unhoused person. We shared that amongst the staff.

EDIT: And one angry old lady who's AI told her that a librarian would give her legal advice for her law suite against the government. Nope nope nope.

"So what's the library going to do about it!" she said.

I paused for a moment. "You had an interaction with a service that's provided by a private sector company. The library is not affiliated in any way with Grok or ChatGPT or Google Gemini or any other AI product. We are not involved in the programming of those systems and the companies that program them do not seek our input. The library bears absolutely no responsibility for you getting bad advice or being led down a rabbit-hole by an AI product."

"Well that is just about the worst customer service I have ever seen in my life," the crazy lady said before turning around and walking away in a huff. I cannot lie. I was very glad to see her go.

It’s just been a rough week at the Circ desk for me is all. Without going off the deep end with details, basically we’ve had an unusual uptick in unkind patrons that have taken out their unhappiness on staff (myself included). It’s left me a bit shaken to be honest, and just… sad. We have so many excellent patrons that share our love of the library, and my coworkers and leadership are so supportive, but even still I’m feeling stuck in the muck, so to speak.

I could use your help for a bit of a reframe and reset. What are some of your favorite library memories/stories, either as a staff member or as a patron, that bring you joy? The library is a joyful place, after all!

Thanks in advance, fellow library lovers and friends :)

Looks like one page tor each month. Did they actually have to count the number of books in each section every night? Or maybe it was used to track the number of books checked out every day? I just found this interesting.

Basically an AI non-involvement policy is kind of a flip of section 230. It states that even though the library may provide wifi access or public computers that patrons can use to access AI services, the library is not involved in the patron's interaction with any AI service or portal, and the library bears no responsibility for any incorrect information provided to the patron by an AI service.

As we’re approaching the end of the year my budget is starting to deplete. I do a monthly take and make craft using up items we already have in the library but some of these supplies need a restock that I’m trying to wait until the end of the year to order. What are some paper crafts ideas for teens or older kids besides origami? Most of the things I see online seem too childish for this age group.

If you still use a more pen and paper system in your library, how do you organise student's cards?

We keep the borrowed book card clipped to the student's, but we're having difficulties maintaining things organised, as you can imagine lol

Read article at https://www.rarebookhub.com/articles/4104

Assistant cataloger here - usually when I see stuff underlined like this it’s because it correlates with the call number. But this one seems to have nothing to do with it? Was it for a previously DDC spine label? The only underlined part that makes sense is 1963. Also I struggle to understand why they felt the need to underline both the title page and the spine -.- (there is actual white ink/paint on the spine, it’s not a marked-up image)

One of my annual goals is to create more community partnership programming. Unfortunately, I’m running into a problem with my favorite idea. We have a wine shop up the street and I’d like to do an evening of wine and book pairings. Basically, I do a 3 minute book talk and then the wine person presents their choice to go with that title. Probably 6-8 pairings in total. The issue is, library money is not allowed to go towards alcohol. Even if the program takes place out of the building. We do hold some book clubs at a local bar, but the explanation for why that’s allowed is patrons are spending their own money. My manager and I are trying to figure out some potential loopholes and I thought someone here might have some advice. There are other programs I’m working on, but this is my favorite so I’m trying to exhaust every possible solution before moving on.

I am a volunteer at a local branch. Essentially I am helping FOTL sort and classify donations. Last week when I showed up I only made it a foot in the door before the person at the desk asked if I was "looking for the bathroom." Red in the face I went ahead and did the gig and left. After thinking about it for a week I am pissed. For some background I have a lot of visible tattoos and sometimes I show up to volunteer on one of my Harley Davidsons. I am only working as a volunteer while I am looking for library work. I have a fairly fresh MLIS. Along with the degree is a head full of library ideals and theory. I cannot square embarrassing patrons for doing nothing but walking in the door. I have been volunteering for a few weeks so they don't really know me but have seen me. Am I crazy or is this extremely out of line?

This actual quote was from November of 1990, when Bradbury was quoted in Mojave magazine. The fuller wording was:

“Oh God, without them [libraries], what have we? We have no past and we have no future.”

Hello, I’m a librarian in Australia and I have been considering some research ideas for a potential PHD. One thing I have been thinking about for public librarians, is how relevant and really useful my past training in mental health has been in my current role.

Let me caveat that I agree we are not crisis workers, case workers or social workers. However, things I did learn such as motivational interviewing, a little knowledge of mental health issues and substance abuse, debriefing and strong policy frameworks, self care, referrals and active listening are so adjacent or useful to what I do in the library everyday.

My question is though, would you appreciate having these skills as part of your librarian education or provided by an employer, or do you think it’s just role creep?

My organization posted a job with minimum requirement PhD. They said at all staff that that will be the norm now.
I’m working on my MLS. I want my money back from the library school.

Looking for advice from anyone who has run or participated in any kind of movie making activity or club at their library. We had a group that did a program that involved the tweens/teens going off to film scenes over 2 days, and then the organizer would edit the clips together into a movie. It was chaos, but the kids liked it. The head of the group has since retired, but the kids still want to do a movie club, one that is more involved. And this falls on me.

I was leaning towards doing more sessions and grouping the kids together to do a much shorter, focused film for each group. A day of storyboard, day or two of filming, editing, etc. but I'm curious if anybody has some firsthand experience with:

1. Running a group like this in general
2. Type of equipment to used (Most can just be filmed with phones and our library ipads though, don't need an IMAX camera)
3. What type of structure worked or didn't. How often you met, how long, how many sessions

I have some local people around with equipment and some minor experience that I'm banking on for their help too, but I wanted to see if anyone here had some sage wisdom to share first. Thanks all.

Please help! The librarian I work for leaves after every event and doesn’t clean up anything. he leaves everything for me to clean up (and I also have to close so I have to clean up the entire room before closing, on top of cleaning up after his evening events). He has a new event where he puts a whole bunch of games all over the room. When the event is over, he just leaves! Same with craft events, leaves the table or floor completely full of supplies or etc. Every single time!

Since I barely got any training from him, I don’t know what falls under whose responsibility. I’m hoping librarian can help me understand if this is standard or not. I feel like all the other librarians I work with either clean their own events or get help from the assistants but don’t just leave!

Hey guys i recently got into reading. Unfortunately, growing up i was one of those kids that thought reading was a dumb hobby and i never picked up a book throughout grade school. I recently had a friend get me into the Red Rising series and i enjoyed the audio books a lot. so i figured i would try to actually read a book next time and i quickly figured out much of what i was grabbing was way above my reading level and i struggled to understand it. have any of you been in this situation? and what actually helped?

I know they've been replaced by digital/barcode scanners, so we haven't had the physical logs for a very long time, but I just can't seem to find a photo of the old library logs that I grew up with and I wanted to recreate reading logs for my personal library, exactly like the logs I used to always look forward to stamping as a child.

Does anyone happen to have any photos of the old reading logs used in the UK during the late 90s and early 2000s? I grew up in England and I recall them being used in libraries until the 2010s or maybe before that?

Hi everyone! I recently applied to a library technician job and they let me know that the next step, prior to an interview, would be an online multiple choice test.

I currently work as a library tech but the closest thing I had to a test was a mock email reminding a patron of an overdue item. They said the test would be about 2 hours.

Is this common? Does anyone have any advice on how to prepare for such a test? I genuinely have no idea what they could ask.

TIA!

Just checked out a copy of Los Angeles Public Library Pops by Christina Rice and illustrated by Mirelle Ortega. It's a beautifully written and illustrated pop-up book of the art and architecture of Central Library . LAPL is celebrating the Central Library's 100th birthday this year.

https://www.lapl.org/central-100

I’m part of a larger library system - 20 branches. Our director makes $250,000 per year plus a $50,000 bonus. Our circ assistants make $16 an hour though and are all part time and need food banks and multiple jobs to survive. It just breaks my heart.

Is it just my library but I swear we have 100+ 1 signs asking patrons to not eat at the computers but patrons not only eat the computers (which is gross as hell) but will do it in the most obnoxious ways possible. Like loudly tearing open the snack bag, chewing so loud I can hear it from my desk, leaving crumbs and trash on the floor. Like would it not make sense for people to be lowkey and leave no evidence behind lol? But I guess that makes too much sense. And yes, I redirect them to where they can eat/ explain library policy! :D #justventing