Friday Funnies in the Library

Unable to compete with Google renaming itself after a midwestern capital, and Gmail in VowelFail mode, I reserved my funnies for April 2nd.

I love the library. It’s not just a source of books and information (not to mention e-books, DVDs, audio books, online access and Story Hour), but a source of entertainment as well.

Thanks to Mary Calhoun Brown for this list of questions Middle Schoolers asked the librarian:

• Do you have books here?
• Do you have any books with photographs of dinosaurs?
• Where in the library can I find a power socket for for my hairdryer?
• Do you have a list of all the books I’ve ever read?
• Is the basement upstairs?
• I got a quote from a book I turned in last week but I forgot to write down the author and title. It’s big and red, and I found it on the top shelf. Can you find it for me?

Me: “Uh, where’s the power socket so I can plug in my mini-laptop/nook/blackberry? Did you know there’s a wireless blank node in the Fiction section? It’s right next to the potted plant overlooking the duck pond. And if I find something I want to copy from Popular Science, can I beam it directly to my nook? Thanks!”

Lest you think the Middle Schoolers don’t know how the library works, see these answers to a quiz given on library usage:

• Reference books cannot be checked out because they are too big and heavy.
• Fiction books are just a lot of stories, so they don’t get a rating number.
• The Dewey System measures how cold it got overnight by measuring how much wetness is on the grass in the mornings.
• You can find words with similar meanings in Rogers Brontasaurus.
• Books with the letter R on the label are only for people over 18 years old.
• You shouldn’t eat in the library because there are too many germs.
• Students are allowed to use the photocopier when it is working.
• You can use an author search if you don’t know who wrote the book your looking for.
• Plagiarism is when you copy someone else without them finding out.
• The New York Public Library has two lions outside the front door to stop people stealing books.
• If I see stuff on the Internet that makes me uncomfortable, I should tell all my friends where the website is so they don’t get scared when they go there by mistake.
• Literature is long stories in tiny letters with no fun happening.
• You should not make too much noise in the library because then no one will know you are there when they come to start a fight.

Me: The library is where you go to find: old friends and new friends; that DVD you forgot to order from Netflix; gorgeous picture books for toddlers and the nine-year-old’s fascination with chemistry; audiobooks for your husband’s road trip; the latest madly successful middle grade novel that has just come in and is now on hold; research for that 5th grade paper on bullying (hopefully in books, not a fight in the stacks).

And occasionally the library is a wonderful retreat from the world, a quiet place to sit and think and write and write and write.

How do you use the library?