Public Library — April 2025

Photo by chris robert on Unsplash

I’m going to try a new series on Medium, a monthly installment of “things that happened in the public library.” For years I have written down observations and interactions I’ve had with patrons at the public library, and many of my friends and family find these stories highly entertaining if not also enlightening on how the public library functions and what we encounter on the regular. I hope you enjoy!

• A man called, already predisposed with annoyance that people in general have book clubs for fiction but “that’s too broad” and he wants to read non-fiction, and inquired what we have. We have fiction book clubs. But I think stating you only want to read non-fiction and not narrowing it down is still pretty broad?
• The local homeless shelter hired a new liaison who does street outreach. We work closely with this position, pointing our patrons to him when they may need supplies or resources. He can give rides and usually has some sleeping bags and tents in his trunk to give away. He stopped by and asked us to keep an eye out for one of our regulars who is in need of some supplies.
• We celebrated Library Appreciation Week, and multiple grocery stores and bank locations in the area dropped off big batches of cookies and cupcakes for us, and another individual patron dropped off donut holes. It’s a relief to see how much our community values us…