The Merry Librarian

Celebrating Australian Libraries and Librarians

We’ve spent the month of March enjoying stories sent in from our fellow librarians from Down Under. Thank you to all who contributed to the first ever Librarians of the World month on the Merry Librarian! We hope you’ll continue to submit your stories from  all over the world. This week’s post is a visual celebration of just a few of the beautiful library locations in Australia. If we’ve done our homework correctly, you should be able to click on an image to learn more about the featured library…and more! Thank you, again, for celebrating libraries and librarians from Australia with us this past month!

Oldest library in Australia: State Library of NSW

Glass floor at Customs House Library

Reference Desk at Customs House Library

National Library of Australia

Interior of National Library of Australia

Balloons over National Library of Australia

State Libary, Victoria, Australia

Another tale from Queensland, Australia, demonstrates the global phenomenon of patrons mistaking librarians for…well, just about anything else. We’ve had patrons mistake us for janitors, psychics, babysitters, contractors…just to name a few. (Check out our archives for more stories of mistaken identity!)  In this case, the patron assumes the librarian capable of incredible financial feats. Ah, well. It all goes back to that infamous question: “You are a librarian, aren’t you?”

Library patron was using one of  our public use Internet access computers. I’d had a fair amount of trouble getting him logged on as he wasn’t too computer savvy but no worries, that’s what we’re there for,  we’re in a low socio-economic area and a big part of our job is to get people ‘connected’.

However, my jaw dropped when he came over and complained that he was trying to book a plane flight and his card was rejected!  Could I fix it? (Yes I did make sure he was actually using his credit card and  not some other card and that he was using the site correctly.)

I guess this comes under the heading ” I’m your librarian not your #$%@#* banker!”

~“Shelly” Queensland, Australia

Send your stories to submit@merrylibrarian.com or call or text in your stories at (216) 23M-ERRY  (216-236-3779)

The library offers people countless opportunities to improve their quality of life, be it through education, financial advice, or by providing the information you need to spice things up a bit. We knew Australia was hot…but this story proves that it may be even hotter than you think!

Enjoy this one, sent in from Queensland, Australia!

At my library branch in Australia we have a favourite ‘quite senior’ couple.
She is on a walking frame and he has a stick. They happily hobble in and out
together frequently. We know for sure that any erotic fiction we may have on
our New Books display will be going home with them.

They first came to our special attention when they asked about the Kama
Sutra which was quite a while back now. Out it went with them and I have to
admit that given their  physical limitations we were definitely perplexed.
However as time has passed and their interest in this area does not wane we
think that they were probably looking for new ideas on just how to manage
best considering their problems.  More power to them and it just goes to
show that a visit to your local library can help with just about anything.

~“Shelly” Queensland, Australia

Send your stories to submit@merrylibrarian.com, or call or text them in to (216) 23M-ERRY (216-236-3779)