List all your library's prohibitions on homemade signs and paste them around your library. No food. No drinks. No cell phones. No animals. No noise. No weapons. No sex. No farting. No murder. No eefing. How else will your patrons know all the things they are not allowed to do in your library?
Ask the readers: What is the most ridiculous prohibitive sign in your library?
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
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27 comments:
In my library, someone has hung up signs in the ladies' rooms with the cloying rhyme, "If you sprinkle/when you tinkle/please be neat/and wipe the seat." Nothing says class like a reminder of how to use the bathroom.
we are a corporate chemistry library and have one sign only.
Please do not wear your lab coat in the library.
Anything else goes!!
We had a "no books" sign on the men's washroom door.
There should be a "No Wiping Boogers" sign next to the urinals in the Men's room.
I've had other friends discuss the boogers they find in the men's bathroom. These friends don't work in libraries. Why is there mass booger-wiping on the walls and stalls in men's bathrooms? What is going on?!
I was instructed to make signs that said "Computer cables are the property of this library and are not permitted to be removed" I asked if I should make similar signs for the computers themselves or other objects in the library but that was considered "ridiculous"
The boogers are not just in men's restrooms. I work in a college and they are also in all the women's restrooms. Gross.
The signs here are because students cannot have drinks, food, cell phones, etc. in class, and that also applies to the lab/library. I personally think signs should be for directions only, such as, to find what you are looking for in our online catalog, follow these directions.
we have signs that say "no food or drink in the library" but that is not the current policy. We won't take the signs down (why, you ask? i've heard various inconsistent explanations, such as "it would leave a mark on the wall where the sign used to be" and "we might need to change our policy someday").
No Loitering.
Not in a library, but my favorite collection of signs was at a New Mexico welcome center on I-40: "Water not fit to drink" and "Watch for snakes."
My library has its collection split between three floors and the signage was this:
000.00-399- lower level
401-999.99- upper level
Apparently there are no book with a 400 call number.
We took all the 'no' signs down. We have to tell them no but in a positive way.
You can talk on the phone ( as loud as possible), that location is by the front door.
When we do have directional signs no one reads them anyway.
For example: Restrooms
We have signs in the restrooms that say "Only one person per stall" or something to that effect. And the signs are professional, not homemade!
We have a sign near the patron computers that says, "No tobacco use of any kind is allowed in the library."
There are cute little cliparts of no-signs over cigarettes and cigars, and then there is a tiny, pixelated picture of a can of Skoal.
Microsoft apparently did not plan on the need of their Texas customers for cute little frowny cliparts of chewing tobacco.
One colleague once suggested (in order for folks to turn off the ringers on their cell phones and use the vibration function instead) that we have a sign at the front of the library that read "turn your vibrators on!"
"No unapproved signs." Seriously. A sign prohibiting signs.
This isn't a prohibitive sign, per say, but I really want to share it:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/9KBBWofZM1o0YzzJSpjLfw?feat=directlink
It's the result of an incorrectly written sign in our library, that I... edited.
"No eefing." I first thought it said, "no queefing," and I thought you'd crossed the line, etiquette-wise.
We're next to a pool, so it makes some sense, but every summer we have to put out the "no swimsuits" signs.
We used to have a "no food or drink" sign, but as we're a library where I assume at least some people read it was created with pictograms. The drink sign was generic enough, but the food sign was a cheeseburger with a red circle and a slash going through it.
Occasionally a smartass would ask "So does that mean there's no cheeseburgers in the library? What if I bring in..." Sometimes they were asking in all seriousness.
It is TOTALLY sad that people need reminders of how to use the bathroom, but I figure, whatever it takes. I sometimes think of making these:
If you sprinkle when you tinkle
Please be neat and wipe the seat
Or I will cap yo' ass.
We're an academic medical library, attached to a hospital, so we have a sign on the front door saying that "Surgical masks are not to be worn in an ambulatory setting." Apparently that was a problem. Then I had some unhappy old guy get mad because darnit, what if he wanted to wear a mask because it was cold season and he didn't want to get sick?
Hey J are you still bitching about your old library after being gone for over a year now? Or is your new library just as whacked as your old library? If you're still bitching about those of us at your old library, maybe you should come back so that you'll get more ideas for your blog. Afterall, you are so much better than us.
"This item MUST be checked out" on the self serve holds shelf. Someone thought people would take their holds and walk out th door with them. Look, 'you have to take your books to the old ladies at the front and give them the little card and make the "beep" noise' is the only thing patrons DO know about how a library work. The sign on the holds shelf should say "If your name isn't on these books, you may not take them off the shelf, unwrap them, and throw them on the floor."
"Please do not spoon on the library furniture."
Apparently we need a sign in my library's women's restroom reminding people where to poop. Something like "Pooping on the floor is prohibited" should do. The unfortunate thing about this recent incident was that it was clearly not from a child.
Apparently we need a sign in my library's women's restroom reminding people where to poop. Something like "Pooping on the floor is prohibited" should do. The unfortunate thing about this recent incident was that it was clearly not from a child.
I had to make "please don't sit on the tables" signs.
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