"...he knew people who who'd worked in public libraries and they all said that "The women were absolutely knockout, man." He was right, too. The libraries were staffed almost entirely by women with perfect bottoms, who read books and voted Labour." [ thanks sara ]

Bill James, the last remaining county commissioner who voted to cut arts funding in 1997, said public money shouldn't support sexually explicit readings. "For those people who want to get their homoerotic jollies, they'll have to do it on their nickel" [ thanks all ]

"We can no longer protect your confidentiality," said Nancy Pearl of the Seattle Public Library. "This is very worrisome." [ thanks rteeter ]

News agencies love to report misdeeds occurring in or around libraries, hoping the Madonna-Sodom dichotomy of innocent libraries and criminal sin will give their stories extra oomph. Don't be fooled. Libraries are far from the rarefied cathedrals of secular humanism they pretend to be, while librarians are the shadiest creatures this side of the Russian mob. Scratch the adamantly bland demeanor of any librarian and you'll find trails of broken hearts, bathtubs full of meth fixings, and covert careers in porn. You can't even get a job interview at a library unless you've gone to jail twice. Trust us, and beware. [ thanks scott ]

more than 150 people lined up ... across from the library, hoping to see just a little bit of Bush. [ thanks mac ]

[T]he chief librarian, said books deemed potentially dangerous will be kept under lock and key. "What's the point of antagonising people unnecessarily?" ...Standing on the supposed site of the ancient beacon of learning, it is hoped the new library will, at least, attract a new brand of bookworm tourist. [ thanks owen ]

Public libraries are magnets for homeless people. And thanks to Bill Gates - when the government started talking "Anti-Trust" ol' Bill suddenly became charitable, giving computers to public libraries across the country, including this one. What I know about computers I learned at the library. [ thanks dave ]

Through history, women have come cheap (through no fault of their own), and the libraries of the world have not hesitated to take advantage of the fact.... if they can persuade their clientele that they don't really need these well-trained practitioners, that a clerk with a high school diploma and a year's experience can do "just as well," then why keep those "expensive" librarians on the job? Dump 'em, and fill their places with even-worse-paid clerks expected to function at levels of responsibility far beyond their training and education.

And as excitement, even when harmless in kind, cannot be continually produced without becoming morbid in degree, works of this class manifest themselves as belonging... to the morbid phenomena of literature--indications of a wide-spread corruption, of which they are in part both the effect and the cause; called into existence to supply the cravings of a diseased appetite, and contributing themselves to foster the disease, and to stimulate the want which they supply. [ thanks janet ]

At the Covington Library, one of a handful of local libraries that host teen book clubs, a dozen or more teens gather every month to talk about books. Almost all say they read more than their peers. "Kids don't read now," notes one. "Except for all of us," says another. [ thanks bruce ]

We'll never get to play a stadium or anything like that. But I sure would like everyone to know about us. The other side of Blöödhag that's developed is the literacy program, playing the libraries. Even though we have a lot of fun with it, we're actually serious. I don't care what people want to read. I just want them to want to read. [ thanks naomi ]

DeCoster, who posed for the photo in her home with her cat and a Christmas gift strategically placed, hasn't told her father yet. "He's 92. I haven't told him but he's getting a calendar for Christmas. We'll see what he says," said Decoster, who says she loved being a librarian, but likes retirement even better. [ thanks bill ]