The Trouble Brothers, 15 years later

One of the blog tags is "Trouble Brothers" for a pair of kids who used to come into my original library and cause chaos. Since I don't work at that library anymore I thought maybe I could re-use the tag for two adults who I think are related and who take trouble to the next level. Hopefully this will be the only instance of the resurrected tag though, since I had to ban them...

There are two men about my age who I think are related (maybe they aren't actually brothers, but they do look alike) who have been coming in lately and have kind of taken over one of the alcoves with tables in it (who designs a public library with alcoves!? aargh!). They seem to be maybe schizophrenic, or otherwise unwell in a paranoid sort of way. I know that mental illness is really tough to deal with, especially in a state like Texas where there is basically no social safety net, so I've really been trying to give them every chance, but they've been bothering other patrons on a pretty regular basis. The problem is that since they are paranoid, other people's perfectly normal behavior, like walking past their table more than once, or browsing the shelves near them, or looking at them because they are constantly muttering fearfully is interpreted as 'stalking' them or 'staring' at them or 'harassing' them.

Today, one of our teen volunteers went to sit at a nearby table and play on his phone while he waited for his ride after his volunteer shift had ended. About 30 seconds later, he came back looking afraid and was like "There are two guys over there who say I am trying to start something with them! They were getting in my face!" I went over there and told the brothers that they were making other patrons uncomfortable and they needed to stop doing things that made other people afraid to be in the same space as them. Of course, instead of apologizing and changing their behavior, they got defensive and insisted that our teen volunteer, who is like 15 years old and about as intimidating as a rabbit, had been hassling them. I ended up having to call the police to make them leave. The entire time I was trying to hustle them out the door they were insisting that the teen volunteer had been stalking them for weeks and was part of a conspiracy against them--they only finally left when I told them that if they weren't gone by the time the police arrived, I would ask the police to cite them for trespassing since they were banned from the library.

After they finally left I went back to the teen volunteer to make sure he was okay. Fortunately he is tougher than he looks and he was fine. I asked if he had had trouble with them in the library before or maybe elsewhere in the neighborhood, since they had been claiming that he followed them around at the grocery store, and had thrown stuff at them out of his car (he doesn't drive) so I was worried maybe they had been a problem for him in the neighborhood too. He looked at me in confusion and said "I have literally never seen those guys before in my life."

Annoying Regular Day

Today is apparently Annoying Regular Day at the library. We have Retired Librarian, Inarticulate Catalog Guy, Mr. Take-My-Card, Running Kid, Hooligan Kids, the whole lot. On the bright side, we also have an old man who I have never seen before who could become a great regular. He hasn't asked for any help but I observed him on the computer on a massively ancient news site, reading story after story about whales. He's been there for at least an hour.

 In related news, the White Whale exists.

Edit 2/14: Per excellent reader suggestion, we are naming the whale guy Captain Ahab.

All the reference...part 2

From August 30th.

Woman wants to see if we have two titles—they’re both textbooks, so unsurprisingly we don’t. She’s a student at the local community college so I find them for her in their library catalog.

Different woman wants a list of places to take ESL classes.

The college student wants to know if ‘devilish’ is a synonym for ‘frightened’ or something else, I forget what. Neither option is a synonym but I’m not so naive as to get into that. I show her a thesaurus and explain how to use it. (Bonus: she begins the question by asking “Can I ask you a personal question? In your opinion…”).

Where can I find a book on making a living trust in Texas?

All the customers for the rest of the hour are old men. One wants the autobiography of Ulysses S. Grant, but our only copy is at another branch and he doesn’t have a library card and won’t pay the $50 non-resident fee to get one, so he can’t place holds. I tell him that JUST THIS ONCE I will put it on my own card, because I’m a huge history nerd, and he should check the shelf in a few days. I hope word doesn’t get around.

Another old man wants to know why his hold on an ebook has disappeared. Turns out it hasn’t; ebook holds show up only on the vendor website, not when a patron logs into the catalog.

Third old man wants a DVD—only copy is at the branch across town. He doesn’t want to place a hold and says he’ll “wait until another day” as if somehow it will magically come over on its own.

Where is the biography section?

The Trouble Brothers are being loud at the children’s PCs.

One of the Trouble Brothers is picking up the keyboard.

A youngish girl wants ‘ballet tapes’ (instructional DVDs for ballet). All of the good stuff is at other branches so her mom comes over to give approval for placing holds and kind of takes over the process (eventually the girl wanders away). Then the same mom wants books on the Star Spangled Banner. Oh, and inventors from the early 19^th century. All for kids. Not encyclopedias—well ma’am, a biographical encyclopedia of scientists might give you an idea of who to get biographies of….this is the biography section. This is how it’s organized.

“My Sister is a Vampire” books (all checked out).

Books for first graders/learning to read books.

Man I helped earlier walks by and says thank you.

Do I REALLY have to tell you not to put your feet on the computer table? (Trouble Brothers again)

Explain to my kids the difference between fiction and non-fiction.

Which books should a first grader and a fourth grader read? (Not readers’ advisory, just wanting to know the meaning of ‘junior fiction’ versus ‘early reader’ etc.)

A nice lady has me look up three children’s series to find out the title of the first in each, and place them on hold for her.

I need your help with the color printer.

Man on the phone has an 8-disc Pimsleur program for learning Russian and wants the 16-disc one instead. It’s checked out so I place it on hold for him and make sure we have his correct phone number to notify him. At the end of the conversation he says, “May I compliment you? You’re great on the phone. You have a good phone voice and you sound like you really enjoy your job.” Highlight of my day so far!

‘Where’s Waldo’ books.

I put these on hold but I don’t want them anymore. You can take them off. They can do that for you at the Customer Service desk, ma’am.

Damp man: Surprise! It’s raining outside!

It says my print job is too many pages. What do I do?

If the computer is asking for a password does that mean someone else has it reserved?

How do I print in black and white? Just one page.

More help for the ‘just one page’ guy.

Do you have three paper clips?

Can you help us print from this website?

Man wants help deactivating not one, but two Facebook accounts. He’s really nice, but it takes FOREVER.

Help a kid with a homework assignment! (For the first time ever!) She is doing a geography project and needs two pictures, one that shows the ‘absolute’ location of our city and one that shows its ‘relative’ location. I help her brainstorm ideas and show her a road atlas and a city map.