The library phone is for emergencies or really cool prank calls only.
Missives from the library
Read MoreLuke in the Library
Every library where I have worked has Luke Skywalker as a patron. Luke was set up in my first week at each institution. He's checked out display materials, put book club books on hold, and reserved spaces all over the library. Luke is my silent library partner.
Read MoreI like watching fire
I like watching fire. There's a comfort to the leaping flames. The sound of crystalline crackles of destruction as wood combusts feels like home to me. It's been that way since I learned to make it.
Read MoreI Come in Peace (1990) to the Library
The librarian stops Penny Man from doing coke in the library and talks about the movie I Come in Peace
Read MoreAt the library We Bury The Dead (2025)
In this dull little anti-zombie tale, we have a woman making her way across Tasmania to find her husband while some of the dead are up and walking around. Why are some of them walking around? Who the fuck knows. All we do know is that drama follows.
Read MoreStaple of a Media Diet
Media matters. It shapes our perspective on places and people. Gives us information on topics that might have been forgotten. Stories and music and culture bleed through the spurting noise that humans make everyday to try and communicate with the past, present, and future. People want to be noticed, so they create.
Read MoreAI Issues
Helping people is difficult. Rewarding at times but often strange as you peer into the face of another human being and wonder what the hell is happening behind that stressed expression. My general rule of thumb after years in reference is to ask "What the hell are you going to do with this information?"
Read MoreWriting Longhand and the Art of Burning
Lotta bullshit going around about AI. Are kids learning to express themselves through writing? Is it helping adult performance at the workplace? Is it worth drinking up the Great Lakes and murdering polar bears to make sure people online can create images of Brad Pitt naked riding a unicorn with Ginger Spice's arms wrapped around his midsection or better they are a conjoined twin centaur bound for eternity in the Forest of Joy after making a beautiful wish at the Butterfly Fountain?
Read MoreThe United States Will Have an Official Library of Stupid: Thoughts About the Upcoming Presidential Library
When George W Bush graduated from president school to become an artist, a lot of us in the library community joked that his official library would be full of all the Crayola doodles of Chaney and dicks. For the current administration, there's less jokes because of all the horrifying and stupid and horrifyingly stupid things the man does on a near constant basis. Thinking about that presidential library, what it will house and where it will be and what it will be a monument to, gives me a sick feeling.
Read MoreBallerina (2025) danced into my heart oh no that's a knife
Sliding down to my seat a little late for the film, I forced a mother to move away from her husband to sit by her children. She was in my seat. I was not just breaking up parental date nights at a violent action movie for the fun of it just because. This time.
Read MoreTo the Class of 2025: Fuck all Y'all
The following is a transcript of a valedictorian speech given to the Banned Library School of Mad Library Science graduates of 2025 by Jessie Marlborough on May 30, 2025.
Hi everybody, including the dean, The Director, faculty, staff, and my fellow students. Thanks for coming to my graduation.
Read MoreTo the Class of 2025: Don't Forget Your Radiation Suit
A transcript of a commencement speech given to the Banned Library School of Mad Library Science graduates of 2025 given by The Director on May 30, 2025.
Read MoreStacks & Swords at the Library
If you want excitement, come on down to the library's game night where we play a rousing form of copyright-friendly role playing game excitement! Our homebrew game of Stacks & Swords invites teens and adults every month to become a member of the "Bibliotheca Animarum," an ancient library that hunts down books and artifacts that can harm humanity. We go to adventure the last Saturday afternoon of the month!
Read MoreHello World
Dave and Nancy found the old computers while going through storage looking for children's costumes. At least, that's what they said they were doing. The two of them often find out of the way places to be alone.
Read MoreThe Wrong Order
Two large wooden boxes marked with red text saying "Do Not Disturb" were delivered. I got Edgar, and the two of us struggled with them from the freight dock to the technical services room. Marge said we could put them anywhere that fit.
Read MoreEyes in the Stacks
It was a Tuesday when I first saw her face staring back at me. I had a loaded cart of nonfiction and was deep in the stacks. My eyes have been getting worse over the years, and even though I have transition glasses, the small call numbers caused some strain.
Read MoreOvercoming the Death Rattle
The library hums and clicks and clacks with the speed of time. Technology has replaced what came before; a baby's cry overcoming the death rattle. Yet we pretend these things are not so because who could replace us? Does being replaced mean we do not, have never, mattered?
Read MoreViolence at the Circ Desk
Interesting things happen when you walk away from the circulation desk. You could come back to a line when you have not seen people all day. You could find a pile of materials, left for any reason but only a few logical. There can also be someone new when you get back.
Read MoreOn Ghosts in Venice
Y'all ever seen a ghost? None of that "I was sitting in Pop-pop's favorite chair and felt a chill" shit. Pop-pop put his chair there because of the cold draft. He was used to it, liked it, and is not trying to tell you where his gold stamps are. So shut that shit.
Read MoreShots Fired
I got shot in the arms the day before yesterday. Not in the fun way. Flu and Covid, both at the same time, walking in there like a goddamn hero.
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