Monthly Archives: April 2025

Columbus Metropolitan Library shenanigans

The Columbus Metropolitan Library in Ohio has been perpetrating all kinds of good shenanigans lately.

For April Fool’s Day, they made a video about laminating every page of their beach reads: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/15CcBjt63z/

And here’s a video about “Duckling Day” https://www.facebook.com/reel/1387026352437158

Lots more at https://www.facebook.com/columbuslibrary

onomatopoetic instructions from the 1990s

Jonathan Caws-Elwitt has been a great friend to Library Shenanigans over the years, and continues his awesomeness with this little shenanigan from ca. 1995.

“Way back when, as a public library inaugurated their first automated circulation system and Hilary Caws-Elwitt was responsible for training her co-workers, she wrote up some beautifully onomatopoetic instructions! Note that “no sound effect” is the exceptional case. Bonus points for any library-IT-history nerds who can identify the specific software merely from the sound effects described. I’m assuming it’s Brodart, but we’re gonna need a version number before any prizes are awarded. (Caveat: I don’t know the answer, though HC-E might. Or perhaps these specific sound effects were important Brodart trademarks that carried over from each version to the next?)”