The Return of Librarian's Corner
by wrackingmybrains
I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the reasons I enjoy my work in libraries so much is that I’m incurably nosy. I’m the kind of person who stares at the shopper in front’s basket in the supermarket checkout queue and tries to extrapolate from the contents everything about the owner from the size of their family to their preferred Saturday night amusement. I find similar satisfaction in examining the items Readers borrow from the library; greater, in fact, as a person’s choice of books, music and films is surely much more revealing than what brand of soap powder they use.
Furthermore, as we have so few members, over the two years I have worked at the library, I have been able to build up ever-more accurate mental pictures of many of our customers’ exact tastes. You’d be surprised how many of them fall into surprisingly uniform and often clichéd types: the mousey middle-aged women who read nothing but Agatha Christie and Romance novels; the security guards addicted to Andy McNab and Chris Ryan and the over-made-up old ladies who order in all the latest biographies of the rich and famous. On the other hand, there are some Readers whose tastes are a little less easily predicted: for example, there are at least two sober-looking business men who visibly sag with disappointment if they can’t get their hands on Hello magazine on the day of its release.
If a certain patron or their choice of entertainment particularly intrigues me, I confess I am not above delving into their user record on our database to unearth other titbits of information about them such as their age, address* and whether they have borrowed an unusual or uncharacteristic item before.
Of all our Readers, the pair that pique my nosiness the most are actually among our most regular visitors; in fact, it is unusual not to see them every day. A casual observer would no doubt take them for a man and a woman, although on closer inspection it is clear that ‘he’ is actually making a half-hearted attempt to be a ‘she:’ long, straggly hair, chipped nail varnish and an animal-print chiffon scarf that seem somewhat at odds with the accompanying stubble, army fatigues and gruff Northern accent.
My colleague Barbara, who has been at the Library 9 years, tells me that this person, who has been coming in for as long as she can remember, used to make a much more concerted effort to be a woman, with neat hair and make-up and distinctly female dress. It seems, however, that over the years he (this is how I will hereafter refer to him as my colleagues and I agree that the dominant overall impression he creates is of… well, perhaps masculinity is too strong a word, but at least ‘maleness’) has gradually lost his enthusiasm for cross-dressing, although his Library record still lists him as ‘F’ and he goes by the name of Annalee Portia Clark.
His habitual companion is apparently unproblematically female (though in my Library you do start to wonder about everyone…).** Her name is Tamara, she has bushy, dyed-black hair, always wears bright red lipstick and, although pushing forty, has the dress-sense of a fifteen-year-old girl: a typical outfit would be leopard-print leggings, ‘Emily the Strange’ top, enormous fluffy grey jacket, and red and black striped nail polish. She is actually rather sweet and smiley; he, on the other hand, is whiney and bad-tempered, especially with the unfortunate Tamara. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them behaving towards each other in a way that might be described as friendly: they bicker constantly and just recently had such a heated argument that she burst into tears and he stormed out, slamming a book down violently on the desk in front of me has he went. And yet they are always together, causing us staff to speculate perpetually about the actual nature of their relationship.
Annalee and Tamara’s main motive for coming into the library is to use the Internet. For people who are unemployed (I know from their records that they both receive benefits, and, of course, they’re always in the library in the middle of the day) they seem to have an awful lot of apparently vital business to attend to. They whisper urgently about coach tickets that must be booked and important emails that the other forgot to send and Annalee refuses to use any computer except the one furthest away from the children’s area as he finds the noise ‘distracting.’ Occasionally another dour and unhealthy-looking man who is obviously Annalee’s brother turns up, further complicating the endless arguments and negotiations.
When taking a break from their ‘business’ Annalee and Tamara spend a lot of time on You Tube, squabbling over who gets to wear our one pair of headphones while they watch Manic Street Preachers videos. As for the things they borrow, Tamara’s choices match her Goth-lite attire: teen horror films, cult children’s programmes and fantasy novels. Actually, her taste sometimes veers worryingly close to my own: I couldn’t help but warm to her when she ordered in DVDs of The Princess Bride and The Last Unicorn and even a Divine Comedy album!
Annalee’s choice of reading material, however, can only be described as scary: books about black magic, serial killers, Nazism and, most recently, a volume entitled AK47: The Weapon that Changed the Face of War. My feeling unease when he ordered in this last book specially from Inter-Library loans was compounded when I happened to look over his shoulder at the computer one day and noticed he was looking at a website selling the eponymous gun! I only hope that the borough’s social security payments won’t stretch to the purchase of light-weight assault rifles…
Such questions alone would provide ample material for conjecture on the part of nosy library staff; however, I have yet to relate the most bizarre and intriguing part of Annalee and Tamara’s visits: every day, without fail, when they have chosen their books and finished using the computers, Tamara asks for the key to the washroom – a room containing a single toilet and sink – and the pair of them solemnly ascend the stairs and enter together, accompanied by Annalee’s brother if he happens to be with them. Ten minutes or so later they return the key and leave.
WHAT DO THEY DO IN THERE?
My first thought, and indeed the only vaguely plausible one I have ever come up with, is that they must be junkies who go into the toilet to shoot up. But even this cynical explanation doesn’t really make sense: for a start, I’ve examined their arms for track marks on many occasions and never spotted any, and secondly, why on earth would they come to the library to inject, why not do it in the comfort of one of their homes?
I like to think there is some far more esoteric and interesting reason behind their daily pilgrimage into the lavatory: some kind of pagan ritual perhaps, or maybe just that, like some of our primary school-age visitors, they don’t like to use the toilet alone because the old-fashioned flush-chain is hard to pull down and the door sometimes jams.
I recently asked some friends for their opinion and they recommended dropping some paper down the toilet just before Annalee and Tamara go up to use it, so we can check afterwards whether it’s been flushed or not. My colleagues were quite taken with this idea; watch this space for a report on the outcome.
* No, not to stalk them, I’m not that creepy, honest, it’s just a good indicator of socio-economic status.
** STOP PRESS: my boss told me yesterday that another of our regular Readers had told him that Tamara also used to be a man! I’m not sure I’m buying this though as she really looks female and the Reader in question is a terrible gossip (almost as bad as me!).
I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the reasons I enjoy my work in libraries so much is that I’m incurably nosy. I’m the kind of person who stares at the shopper in front’s basket in the supermarket checkout queue and tries to extrapolate from the contents everything about the owner from the size of their family to their preferred Saturday night amusement. I find similar satisfaction in examining the items Readers borrow from the library; greater, in fact, as a person’s choice of books, music and films is surely much more revealing than what brand of soap powder they use.
Furthermore, as we have so few members, over the two years I have worked at the library, I have been able to build up ever-more accurate mental pictures of many of our customers’ exact tastes. You’d be surprised how many of them fall into surprisingly uniform and often clichéd types: the mousey middle-aged women who read nothing but Agatha Christie and Romance novels; the security guards addicted to Andy McNab and Chris Ryan and the over-made-up old ladies who order in all the latest biographies of the rich and famous. On the other hand, there are some Readers whose tastes are a little less easily predicted: for example, there are at least two sober-looking business men who visibly sag with disappointment if they can’t get their hands on Hello magazine on the day of its release.
If a certain patron or their choice of entertainment particularly intrigues me, I confess I am not above delving into their user record on our database to unearth other titbits of information about them such as their age, address* and whether they have borrowed an unusual or uncharacteristic item before.
Of all our Readers, the pair that pique my nosiness the most are actually among our most regular visitors; in fact, it is unusual not to see them every day. A casual observer would no doubt take them for a man and a woman, although on closer inspection it is clear that ‘he’ is actually making a half-hearted attempt to be a ‘she:’ long, straggly hair, chipped nail varnish and an animal-print chiffon scarf that seem somewhat at odds with the accompanying stubble, army fatigues and gruff Northern accent.
My colleague Barbara, who has been at the Library 9 years, tells me that this person, who has been coming in for as long as she can remember, used to make a much more concerted effort to be a woman, with neat hair and make-up and distinctly female dress. It seems, however, that over the years he (this is how I will hereafter refer to him as my colleagues and I agree that the dominant overall impression he creates is of… well, perhaps masculinity is too strong a word, but at least ‘maleness’) has gradually lost his enthusiasm for cross-dressing, although his Library record still lists him as ‘F’ and he goes by the name of Annalee Portia Clark.
His habitual companion is apparently unproblematically female (though in my Library you do start to wonder about everyone…).** Her name is Tamara, she has bushy, dyed-black hair, always wears bright red lipstick and, although pushing forty, has the dress-sense of a fifteen-year-old girl: a typical outfit would be leopard-print leggings, ‘Emily the Strange’ top, enormous fluffy grey jacket, and red and black striped nail polish. She is actually rather sweet and smiley; he, on the other hand, is whiney and bad-tempered, especially with the unfortunate Tamara. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them behaving towards each other in a way that might be described as friendly: they bicker constantly and just recently had such a heated argument that she burst into tears and he stormed out, slamming a book down violently on the desk in front of me has he went. And yet they are always together, causing us staff to speculate perpetually about the actual nature of their relationship.
Annalee and Tamara’s main motive for coming into the library is to use the Internet. For people who are unemployed (I know from their records that they both receive benefits, and, of course, they’re always in the library in the middle of the day) they seem to have an awful lot of apparently vital business to attend to. They whisper urgently about coach tickets that must be booked and important emails that the other forgot to send and Annalee refuses to use any computer except the one furthest away from the children’s area as he finds the noise ‘distracting.’ Occasionally another dour and unhealthy-looking man who is obviously Annalee’s brother turns up, further complicating the endless arguments and negotiations.
When taking a break from their ‘business’ Annalee and Tamara spend a lot of time on You Tube, squabbling over who gets to wear our one pair of headphones while they watch Manic Street Preachers videos. As for the things they borrow, Tamara’s choices match her Goth-lite attire: teen horror films, cult children’s programmes and fantasy novels. Actually, her taste sometimes veers worryingly close to my own: I couldn’t help but warm to her when she ordered in DVDs of The Princess Bride and The Last Unicorn and even a Divine Comedy album!
Annalee’s choice of reading material, however, can only be described as scary: books about black magic, serial killers, Nazism and, most recently, a volume entitled AK47: The Weapon that Changed the Face of War. My feeling unease when he ordered in this last book specially from Inter-Library loans was compounded when I happened to look over his shoulder at the computer one day and noticed he was looking at a website selling the eponymous gun! I only hope that the borough’s social security payments won’t stretch to the purchase of light-weight assault rifles…
Such questions alone would provide ample material for conjecture on the part of nosy library staff; however, I have yet to relate the most bizarre and intriguing part of Annalee and Tamara’s visits: every day, without fail, when they have chosen their books and finished using the computers, Tamara asks for the key to the washroom – a room containing a single toilet and sink – and the pair of them solemnly ascend the stairs and enter together, accompanied by Annalee’s brother if he happens to be with them. Ten minutes or so later they return the key and leave.
WHAT DO THEY DO IN THERE?
My first thought, and indeed the only vaguely plausible one I have ever come up with, is that they must be junkies who go into the toilet to shoot up. But even this cynical explanation doesn’t really make sense: for a start, I’ve examined their arms for track marks on many occasions and never spotted any, and secondly, why on earth would they come to the library to inject, why not do it in the comfort of one of their homes?
I like to think there is some far more esoteric and interesting reason behind their daily pilgrimage into the lavatory: some kind of pagan ritual perhaps, or maybe just that, like some of our primary school-age visitors, they don’t like to use the toilet alone because the old-fashioned flush-chain is hard to pull down and the door sometimes jams.
I recently asked some friends for their opinion and they recommended dropping some paper down the toilet just before Annalee and Tamara go up to use it, so we can check afterwards whether it’s been flushed or not. My colleagues were quite taken with this idea; watch this space for a report on the outcome.
* No, not to stalk them, I’m not that creepy, honest, it’s just a good indicator of socio-economic status.
** STOP PRESS: my boss told me yesterday that another of our regular Readers had told him that Tamara also used to be a man! I’m not sure I’m buying this though as she really looks female and the Reader in question is a terrible gossip (almost as bad as me!).
posted by bitingmylip at 3:53 AM
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