According to Jill Lepore’s excellent book The Mansion of Happiness: The History of Life and Death (2012), 19th century New York public libraries had different rules for girls and boys. To use the Astor Library, for example, you had to be fourteen years old … and male. Do you know what this means, shenanigan connoisseurs? This means that any girl who used the Astor Library was committing a shenanigan! I am working on finding out more about this cockamamie rule, but I had to tell you right away about all the presumable shenanigans that must have taken place in the late 19th century in New York. Girls with fake mustaches? Girls in drag? Presumably girls and women were, at some age, allowed in the Astor, but I don’t yet know the exact age requirement for them. I’m working on it; check back in a week. Now, in the 21st century, the NYPL rules state that all children from the age of zero upward are eligible for library cards. I like the idea of a newborn baby having a library card.

Thanks, Jill Lepore, and, by way of Lepore’s footnotes, thank you also to Miriam Braverman and her book Youth, Society, and the Public Library (1979).

Addendum, August 13: Braverman’s book doesn’t discuss the Astor Library. The factoid about boys fourteen and up appears in another source Lepore cites, Frances Clarke Sayers’s Anne Carroll Moore: A Biography (1972). Beginning in 1896, Moore was a children’s librarian in New York City; for better or for worse, she had long-lasting national influence on the profession. Unfortunately, Sayers’s biography doesn’t contain any added information about the age requirements for boys and girls at NYC libraries.  I would like to think the Astor Library allowed all girls in, regardless of age, though that’s not what Sayers implies. The librarian of the Astor in 1854, when the rule about boys fourteen and up was in place, was not impressed with the books the “young fry” chose to read; he described their choices (Scott, Cooper, Dickens, Punch, and the Illustrated News) as “trashy” (Sayers, p. 106). Circa 1868, both girls and boys under the age of sixteen in Washington Heights could pay five cents a week to use the library there (Sayers, p. 110). As far as I can tell, boys and girls had equal access to children’s libraries in NYC in Moore’s time. I’ll keep working on it.

Victoria’s Kitchen, a London bakery, made these bookish treats for a customer’s 60th birthday. Each of the books shaped her life in some way. Thanks, Juliet Cook, Kathleen Kirk, and Hooked on Books!

The “main accords” of this library-scented perfume are wood and leather, with, apparently, a little bit of smoke and animal thrown in. Sounds a lot like some of the best libraries I’ve visited, though not all have actual animals in them. Thanks, BoingBoing!

Our anonymous Oxford shenaniganner sends us another beauty:

Upon his death in 1715, William Brewster divided his substantial library between the Bodleian, Saint John’s College, Hereford Cathedral, and All Saints Parochial Library at Hereford.  Among the nearly 300 chained books was the first Vernacular Livy (Venice: 1493) [pictured] which was left to All Saints.  As with many books of the era, the Livius was graced with a book curse which remains just below the All Saints wood-engraved bookplate, reading:

 “Qui libru[m] istu[m] furatu[r]
a domi[no] maledicat[ur]”

At some point in its history, some library patron had added his own Mediæval version of shenanigans, capitalising on the fact that the “a” in “maledicatur” had been left slightly open, and the “l” following it was left quite short, and hence, with three short penstrokes, the anathema which promised God’s wrath to whomsoever might dare pilfer the volume was made anew:

“Qui libru[m] istu[m] furatu[r]
a domi[no] benedicat[ur]”

promising that God would “speak kindly of” anyone who would steal this book.

For more information on book curses, try Marc Drogin’s Anathema!: Medieval Scribes and the History of Book Curses (1983), available at a library near you.

I’m sure these library cats are models of good behavior and never ever do any shenanigans. Thanks, Dina Wood!

Update, April 2017: a three-legged cat at a Cambridge University library relieves student stress.

A Facebook friend in Australia posted this in July 2012. Turns out it was created two years ago by my poetry-and-libraries friend Emily Lloyd! It’s a small world among library shenaniganners, I guess. Thanks, Kelley Kreilick Smith and Shelf Check!

Each year, at the printing stations of Colorado College’s Tutt Library, dozens of staplers die untimely deaths. Much wailing ensues. The mourners look to library staff for support during these difficult times. LeDreka Davis, our Circulation Operations Coordinator, has put together a fabulous mini-exhibition of stapler obituaries and other documents, including a scientific paper entitled “Evolutionary Basis of Stapler-Induced Human Aggression and Psychopathology.” Thanks, LeDreka and Tutt students and staff!

Not exactly a library shenanigan, but close enough for me. It’s part of the London 2012 festival, a Borgesian maze over 500 meters square. Thanks, Dina Wood!

These shelves are connected with Book Forest and BookCrossing. I hope they succeed! Thanks, BoingBoing and Bookshelf.

Wingtips. Photo provided by our anonymous Oxford shenaniganner.

Our anonymous Oxford alum sends us a second excellent shenanigan:

I’d nearly put this out of memory, but during the same period Doctor Quinn resolved to quiet the library (he’d have been aghast at the Half Naked Half Hour), and considerable effort was expended in the making of signs and in the consecration of so-called “Whisper Zones,” with (small) fines imposed upon those intent upon disregarding them.  This coincided with the discovery of a Pet Supplier in nearby Faringdon, who kept on hand a vast selection of very small “squeaky toys” intended to be clipped to the cages of Budgies, for the amusement of the birds and the vexation of their owners.

The wing-tip was the choice of the day for young gentlemen (and remains so in some circles to this day), and new stiff leather wing-tips will, before being fully “broken in” oftimes issue forth a squeaking sound, as the fresh, smooth leather rubs with each step – a sound not at all unlike that produced by a small squeaky toy placed beneath the instep, and muffled by one’s argyles.

We The vile perpetrators made a concord to speak not a word within the confines of the library, but instead to walk about as much as possible, usually in brief shifts, sometimes as many as a dozen at once.  The explanation, “new shoes” sufficed only a short time, and by the third day, new signs had appeared reading, “squeaking shoes must be removed when using the library.”  Thereafter, rows of wing-tips with paper ownership labels tucked in lined the entry hall; “squeakers” were placed beneath the sock, and the campaign continued unabated.

On the fourth day (or perhaps the fifth day – memory is unclear these many years now removed) new signs proclaimed “Students must be barefooted to access library materials.”  Undaunted, barefooted assemblages sat in mock misery, pocket squares at hand, blowing their noses with great fervour, each having taken a chill because of the draughts in the old building.  The following day, the library, devoid of all signs, recaptured its previous hum of muffled voices, and the matter was considered closed by both factions.