Donated Books, Cryptic Comments Spook Librarians

After a man dropped off a box of books at a Tempe (AZ) library, staff called security, concerned about the man’s “manner and cryptic comments.” The building was evacuated and nothing more menacing than a bunch of old newspapers from the 1920s and 30s was found. More from the Arizona Republic.

October 2, 2004 by Uncategorized 4

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4 Responses

  1. rochelle says:
    October 2, 2004 at 5:25 pm

    Why this bothers me
    Having not been there, I really can’t know how odd the guy was, but to equate odd with dangerous really troubles me. I’ve heard stuff like “you can’t be too careful,” but, yeah, I think you can. At the library where I work we play regular host to the merely eccentric and the seriously mentally ill. Odd behavior is part of our landscape. I’ve seen patrons and other colleagues react with insensitivity to people whose behavior they didn’t understand.

    Yesterday, one of our regular creeps who regularly asks asks to unblock the filter so that he can look at crap, was complaining about a young developmentally disabled man who was working at a computer across from him and making a bit of noise. He wanted me to kick the young man off so he could look at soft-core porn in peace. I told him the young man was just fine, and he stomped off (yay!).

    I guess I’m just annoyed and even a bit chilled by intolerance to human variety.

    Reply
  2. April says:
    October 2, 2004 at 7:08 pm

    Re:Why this bothers me
    I see your point, but to me it makes all the difference in the world how they acted towards the guy. They didn’t refuse the donation, they thanked him and waited until he was gone to raise any concerns. They were discreet. Now that the paper reported on it, the man may read the story, but without the newspaper it sounds like he would have never been able to figure out that they thought him suspicious. That’s key to me. I think they did the right thing in reporting a suspicious box. They also did the right thing in not bringing up their suspicions in front of the man to save him from embarrassment or hurt feelings in case he was (as turned out to be the case) a well-meaning man who was a bit odd.

    Reply
  3. rochelle says:
    October 2, 2004 at 7:31 pm

    Re:Why this bothers me
    You are absolutely right, and I didn’t mean to second-guess the staff. I have been spooked by folks myself–usually episodic paranoid schizophrenics. I understand fear. But I see so much intolerance of difference or weirdness. I guess this story just made me spin off in a slightly different direction.

    Reply
  4. rochelle says:
    October 2, 2004 at 7:32 pm

    Re:Why this bothers me
    And, yes, I acknowledge my intolerance of the creepy soft-core porn surfer.

    Reply

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