Barack Obama?

johnsoninca: Barack Obama?

THE GOVERNMENT IS TAKING OVER OUR LIBRARIES!!1!1

I wish the Seattle Public Library would grow a pair and boot the bums.

platkat: I wish the Seattle Public Library would grow a pair and boot the bums.

Libraries only exist so homeless people can make B.M. All good tax-paying Americans buy their books at Barnes and Noble. And the best Americans don't read at all.

Is this guy homeless, then? Many of the truly reeking are (and lack facilities) but occasionally there are people who seem to have ordinary jobs, money, etc, but just don't like to bathe. It's almost weirder, since they have no facilities excuse and don't SEEM to be all that mental in other areas.

Either way, if the public LIBRARY has kicked a patron out, that's a sign. A very, very bad sign.

This wreaks of something political

ecmoRandomNumbers: Libraries only exist so homeless people can make B.M. All good tax-paying Americans buy their books at Barnes and Noble. And the best Americans don't read at all.

I've made a BM or two at the library. It's conveniently located right in the middle of town!

I browse for books at B&N sometimes, then go home and either add them to my hold list at the library (most libraries will pull books for you to come pick up, so you don't even have to hang out there) and if they don't have it, I buy it on Amazon for half price or less.

Still, the library could be a good resource for more people if there were even a basic set of rules that need be followed upon entering. I think a lot of people stay away because they're afraid of the kinds of riffraff they may encounter. (Unfortunately.)

ecmoRandomNumbers: Libraries only exist so homeless people can make B.M. All good tax-paying Americans buy their books at Barnes and Noble. And the best Americans don't read at all.

You forgot the part about letting the homeless people whack off while looking at porn on the public internet terminals.

Now, if libraries were to focus less on storing paper books and more on getting those books scanned and made available online, they'd have something going. (That, unfortunately, will require unfarking our ridiculous copyright laws so that libraries couldn't get sued out of existence for doing it...)

Iran out of deodorant this morning, so I'm getting a kick.

cranberryzero: johnsoninca: Barack Obama?

THE GOVERNMENT IS TAKING OVER OUR LIBRARIES!!1!1

Muslins don't take showers.

legion_of_doo: If you take public transportation, libraries are good b/c you can get books to read... and if you take public transportation, you are used to the smelly homeless people anyway.

...and the smelly hoarder not-so-homeless.

I'll admit, I take the bus. There is one older woman (white hair, fat) frequently on the same bus as me, heaven forbid if she sits in front of me, because when the bus starts up the air will shift backward slightly and it's a nose full of reeeeeek. BO, and just... old BO, that sour smell from not bathing since god knows when.

She rides a bike, too (modern nice bike) and stores it on the front of the bus for the bus part of her travels, so there's sweating involved. And 240951039830296 plastic bags full of god only knows what involved, because she picks up trash on the street and keeps it.

She doesn't comb her hair and is kinda disheveled, but it takes a moment for the full stink to kick in. So there are always n00bs who make the mistake of sitting next to her, and then 2s later realizing just WHY that was the only seat left open while people were standing...

/and yes, she's often taking the bus to the library by my house

The man has apparently a girlfriend, and they both look like what you'd expect...

*shudder*

Link (new window)

Guntram Shatterhand: Of course, a real library will have some censoring material on there. A few don't and those ones have a lot more issues than dealing with porn on the computers and such. I could tell you a few stories, but you get my drift.

My local library is awesome and well used, for books and computers. They've put the public access terminals (as opposed to free wireless which is throughout the building) in a place clearly visible from the reference desk, so if you're on the terminals, you're under surveillance.

This cuts down on the vast majority of, well, "inappropriate" web browsing.

However, it means that when someone IS surfing the pr0n, they're hardcore enough to do it out there in the open right under the librarian's nose.

I used to hang around a community space that also had some public access terminals, and one of these individuals started coming by on a regular basis, to surf pr0n and generally be inappropriate about it. Under questioning, he admitted that he'd been banned (banned!) from the public library. Yeah, if they've banned you, I don't EVEN wanna know. We eventually ended up banning the guy too, because he turned out to be quite nuts, started claiming he owned the building and was a federal agent and all sorts of fascinating stuff.

Sometimes the whiff of Teh Crrraaaazy! is more off-putting than the physical BO issues. But so often they coincide, for extra fun!

Harold_of_the_Rocks: The weird, eccentric, homeless, mentally ill and let's not forget the most frightening of all: WACKO RIGHT-WING CHRISTIAN HOME-SCHOOLERS. They will drive you insane.

Around here we have some who keep donating creationist videos and literature to the library and then complaining when the library lets the stuff go to the library sale rather than keeping it there in the science section. So, they write letters to the editor about it.