The library of the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio held its first-ever Library Olympics in August of 2016. Events included book-truck maneuvering, speed-sorting, and journal-Jenga.

Thanks, Ross Gresham!

Library staff at the Multnomah County Library in Portland, Oregon are recommending books to readers based on their tattoos.

Of course they are.

Thanks, Terry Kennedy!

My friend David Weinstock was skeptical when his mother mentioned she wore roller skates as a page at New York University in the early 1940s. He did a little research and discovered this!

That’ll teach him to doubt his mother.

I haven’t been able to find any photographs of the NYU pages, but according to this article in Noticing New York, the film You’re a Big Boy Now features a roller-skating library worker:

I suppose we don’t need pages on roller skates any more, since digitization puts so much information at our fingertips. Why, we hardly even need to get up from our computer chairs any more. Alas. I suppose we could try skating at our treadmill desks, kind of like this guy:

Joke news from 1939. At left, Glasgow Herald,  June 15, 1939, page 10.

Similarly, the Library Association Record (London), Series 4, Volume 6, 1939, page 338:

“Then, too I should hope he had at least a nodding acquaintance with the technical jargon, or language if you prefer the term, of librarians and booksellers, so that if told that some incunabula had been found in one of the cupboards, he would not, as did one chairman, order the library to be closed and request the Medical Officer to have it immediately disinfected.”

Thank you, Daniel Traister, for bringing this shenanigan to my attention on Facebook with an image from an unknown publication:

And thank you, Jay Dillon, for providing the versions with citations.

Traister’s Facebook friends then proceeded to yuck it up:

For almost a century, some New York City libraries had live-in caretakers. Here’s a highlight from the 6SQFT article: when the Thornberry family looked after the New York Society Library and lived in it, young Rose Mary Thornberry got to host sleepovers there! Aw man. I wish I coulda gone to one of those.

Somebody sent this shenanigan to me a while back and it got lost in the mire that is my online life. Thanks, Suzie DeGrasse, for bringing it back to my attention!

I wish I knew more about this clever shenanigan. It’s clearly a “little free library” kind of library and appears to be located in a forest. Anybody know anything more?

Cleveland librarian John Harris is providing books outside of the Republican National Convention this week.

Thanks, Lynne Thomas!

Addendum from later the same day: here’s an image Janis Winn sent to the ALA Think Tank Facebook page, saying “Prepare to see a lot of this one, my library friends.” Thanks, Dina Wood !

The Taman Bima Microlibrary in Bandung, Indonesia was built using upcycled plastic ice cream containers, possibly LuVe Litee brand, though I’m not sure. Thanks, Terry Kennedy!

I’m not playing this [see below] and I don’t really understand how it works except that I hear Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End has a similar kind of game in it it.

Apparently, Pokémon Go players are finding creatures and other stuff in libraries all over the United States. I wonder if I could lure one into my office? I will find out.

Pokémon GO: What Do Librarians Need To Know? (School Library Journal)

‘Pokémon Go’ sends swarms of players to bookstores and libraries. But will they remember the books? (Los Angeles Times)

Everything Librarians Need To Know About Pokemon Go! (Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Shelves)

Why Pokemon Go and The Library is a perfect partnership (ALSC blog)

Local library goes viral thanks to Pokemon plans (The Island Packet)

Addendum, July 21: Change “I’m not playing this” to “I wish I could play this but my phone doesn’t have a gyroscope. My kids are playing it and so is practically everybody I know.”

A colleague was able to capture two creatures in the Special Collections area:

I ordered Joshua Hammer’s book for my library when I first read a review of it, months ago. Today a friend suggested the story of these “bad-ass” librarians as a shenanigan, and I have to agree.  Smuggling controversial manuscripts to safety is the kind of dangerous and non-goofy shenanigan librarians were kinda born to do.

Thanks, Daniel M. Shapiro!