Public Library

In all my years, I never figured I would see a person escorted out of a library by a police officer...but I have now and I can die happy.

A public library is a permanent structure for hobos to temporarily escape the harsh elements. Hobos tend to degrade over time if exposed to excess light, heat, and moisture, so climate control efforts are made to prevent damage to these resources until they are sold off for pennies on the dollar, although many of them just end up in dumpsters.

Here is where the newly homeless find the nearest liquor stores, research porn, and ponder their next move while they wonder where did it all go so wrong? It is also the only place where unemployed non-basement dwellers can apply for jobs, check email, or be exposed to any memes that haven't already been appropriated by other forms of media.

A public library is a window to the world to mostly stale, horribly out-of-date content for poorfags who can't afford to travel and disabledfags who can't. It is a cesspit of bleeding heart liberalism, and the #1 cause of librartarianism.

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As a magnet for the poor and other creepy human garbage, a public library is also a no-cost rental center where poor gross nerds can freely borrow all the shit they can't afford to buy, like wifi. As well as a place for cheapskates to save money and read books for free outside of bookstores coffeeshops, or for entrepreneurs to run unlicensed internet pharmacies inspired by free cookbooks found at missing from the library. A library is what a news stand book store magazine shop comic book shop an extinct brick-and-mortar store "ain't", because libraries killed them all. It is also a vector for infectious diseases, like sock puppets and "other viewpoints." A public library is also where you can print yourself an offline copy of the Internets for when civilization collapses. Protip: A library is an affordable babysitter for single moms going to their job interview to be a stage performer.

Libraries employ dweebs called librarians, who are kings of their own dweeb fiefdoms. Librarians are weird smelly communist hoarders who leech off benefactors to feed their hoarding addiction, and they let the unwashed masses get their grubby hands over all their stuff. These no-fun-allowed professional hoarders rely on ancient relics called "shelves" to make many non-electric obsolete forms of media that nobody cares about available to local citizens. For example, magazines, books, CDs, news publications, movies, microfiche, the Internet, and other heretical and naughty forms of faith-destroying information, much of it based on gay renewable resources because librarians are treehugging tree-killing faggots. By also providing non-textual information, these pinko faggots also cater to worthless illiterates who can't even read your email Geocities Myspace Livejournal blog vanity article fanfiction dank memes text messages.

Public libraries created the idea of "free information" "freedom" and are the archenemy of capitalism and all other institutions, including pay-to-know universities. Efforts to rid the world of these evil establishments have largely failed. Although some success has been made by religious fanatics since the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ: Julius Caesar in the 1st century, Aurelian in the 3rd century, Pope Theophilus in the 4th century, Muslims in the 7th century, other limited incursions by Christfags, and Hitler.

Public libraries are common fossils found in Holocene strata and are a source of carbon sequestration. They are an earlier ancestral form of filesharing based on wood instead of metal. Also known as IRL TOW, they condition a populace to be filthy parasites by letting people legally shoplift and by taking food out of the mouths of the children of authors and creators. Public libraries are open to beggars, run by beggars, and devoted to creating more beggars. They are also an important dietary source of cellulose and starches for these pests.

The Dewey Decimal System

Invented at least 100 years ago by supreme autismal Melvil Dewey, the Dewey Decimal System is a primitive hash function which distills the essence of an old meme down to a single fractional number so that people with OCD can sort them daily. It's divisory nature is intended to foster social divisions and social stratification by promoting the invention of increasingly divisible categories and encouraging the practice of categorizing information and people so they can be labeled and put on a shelf and ignored.

An Amerilard competitor to this autism is the just-as-autistic Library of Congress Classification system, used by the self-reported largest library in the world, The Library of Congress. Open to the public and having over 9000 items in its collection, it's a place where politicians don't do any research on a topic before talking about it, and proles are not allowed to check out books for fear of inciting a revolution or making pornography unavailable to politicos.

Environs

When a person enters the library, they will be inundated with a confusing and vast array of information. At first glance, the place appears to be swirling carnival full of Elvis impersonators, hairy midgets, and obese opera sopranos. A careful re-examination of the place will actually reveal that the first impression is quite true. The library is a place where nobody has any idea what the hell is going on, but you better shut the hell up because somebody is trying to read. Some other notable highlights include:

• Numerous shelves full of books that offer nothing more than a hiding place for teens to neck in complete privacy.
• Two Puerto Rican kids selling pot in the bathroom
• Air conditioning so cold your testicles will turn into ice cubes and then suck themselves back up into your stomach.
• A dust covered microfiche machine which will allow you to read very old newspaper articles. What the fuck is a microfiche?
• The 1967 edition of World Book. Funk & Wagnals is for suckers.
• A hell of a lot of plastic plants.
• Whoops, some 8 year old kid puked what appears to be a lime Icee in the kid’s section.
• Books. Pfft, haha, right.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Srsly.

STFU.

Carrying on the tradition of literate virgin monks, public libraries encourage silence because nobody gives a fuck what you think. The kind of pristine silence in the vacuum of outer space, or that most of the authors in the library currently enjoy, or that your corpse will one day not experience.

People who have never been to a library don't know how to shut their fucking mouths.

Free media

Public libraries provide multimedia that the general public can take home with them, and even better, it's free and easy! Just walk inside, find the item you would like to check out, walk up to the friendly person behind the counter, and walk right past them and out the door since you already tampered with the item and removed the RFID strips embedded in it because the New World Order put them there and you don't want your name on some government watchlist. Or if the burglar alarms have a set height, by throwing the old media over them and quickly catching it on the other side. This is an archaic, analog form of downloading. The thief can then show off the contraband to unimpressed peers who wonder what kind of pathetic mega virgin steals library books or other analog media in an attempt to make them look like a hard bad dude? Why not just sign up for a library card with a fake name? Well where's the thrill in that?

But mostly the alarms are there to embarrass bookworms and publicly shame them for being such a nerd that they checked out so many materials that one of them wasn't scanned. The effect is like a shock collar for Aspies and other social retards. This rarely happens now ever since foreign robots steal jobs, nobody reads books, people just borrow files from the library because they don't know the Interwebs were invented, and people get the thrill of stealing OTI.

Public library scanners inspired the TSA to X-ray your balls looking for smuggled books, such as the Koran, and flight instrumentation panel schematics for a Boeing 757/767.

Since public libraries condition people to feel entitled to free media, these free storehouses are responsible for destroying the paywalled old media industry, including but not limited to: newspapers, magazines, books, the music industry, and the film industry. Basically every product a library carries. Why pay for what you can get for free? This coup has been a communist plot all along which is why Republicans avoid libraries at all costs. Libraries feed wild animals, which inevitably leads to a bear eating someone alive (publishers, distributors, authors, content creators). Since consumers have been conditioned to expect to read things for free, companies now expect people to write things for free, so now all businesses have been absorbed into the advertising industry, which pay people with free advertisements.

Protip: Deadwood is not a TV show about libraries, but it is about the sex lives of the kinds of cocksuckers who frequent them.

Late fees

We conclude tonight's broadcast with did you hear about that lady who racked up over 9000 dollars in late fees on that now out-of-print book that contains a dirty word? Isn't that zany?

Taking a cue from other dead brick-and-mortar rental centers, public libraries use late fees to encourage people to return movies. If they don't, they will be penalized with a fee and won't be able to check things out anymore until they pay the fee. This fails however because it's based on the belief that people will ever want to come back to the library. Other libraries have wised up and don't allow some or all of their items to be in "circulation" because humans cannot be trusted, especially with free stuff.

For the People-Watchers

Should you enjoy people-watching, an afternoon outing at the local Public Library will grant you an enormous cornucopia of fodder for your voyeuristic pleasure. While at the library, you will see fat, divorced den mothers, militant lesbian librarians (mustache included), hordes of spastic children, and, if you are very lucky, police officers escorting pedophiles out of the kid’s section. This segment is designed to aid the average people-watcher by highlighting some of the more spectacular species of weirdo you may encounter at the library.

The Old Creep

Wearing polyester shorts that are hiked far too high, black socks with white Reeboks, straw fedoras, and huge black sunglasses which they wear even indoors, The Old Creep is at the library for one reason: to stare at young girls. The Old Creep can be found:

• Milling about the computer stations, looking at non-nude pedo sites.
• Pretending to look for books on obscure topics. Home lawnmower repair, swimming for exercise, and books dealing with the depression of loneliness are their favorite topics.
• Lurking near the drinking fountain in hopes that somebody bends over to use it.
• Attempting to peek down the blouse of that one librarian…you know, the one with moles.
• Wandering around the park that usually surrounds the library. They either have binoculars for looking at the girls on the swing sets, or are using their metal detectors to look for coins.
• ”Adjusting themselves” in a very overt manner while grumbling about their lumbago. What the fuck is lumbago?
• Aimlessly meandering through the reading area, occasionally bending over to smell the sofa cushions where pre-teen girls might have sat.

The Old Creep is generally too old to achieve erection and can normally be considered harmless, however on hot summer days, should you notice a polyester tent being pitched, it is a good idea to maintain a safe distance. One final curiosity about this species is the fact that sometimes they actually read books.

Patchouli Sally

Patchouli Sally wears long, sweeping, dirty hippy skirts along with sandals and t-shirts that usually have some sort of liberal slogan emblazoned on them. These sometimes violent patrons are at the library to gather information on their latest pet project in order to inform an uncaring public about unknown dangers that should be…nay, MUST BE exposed. Should you spot Patchouli Sally, she will usually be attempting the following:

• Trying to get other patrons to sign a petition for the illegalization of farming, as farmers and corporate farming are ruining the environment with their oil-consuming tractors and phosphate-laden fertilizers. Growing pot in the basement is fine.
• Reading books in the sexual health section as they have not had an orgasm for quite some time, not realizing that the problem stems from the fact that they sleep with spineless, weak-chinned, noodle-dicked, ponytail-wearing poets.
• Checking out books about beads.
• Standing in line at the information desk, waiting to find out if the latest editions of “Peta Weekly” and “The Journal of Animal Liberation” are in stock yet.
• GLOBAL WARMING
• Giving a sermon about how we should all cut apart the rings on a six-pack holder in case some unlucky duck should manage to get one caught around its neck.
• Braiding either their leg or armpit hair.
• Reading out loud to children in the kid’s section. Usually, from some socialist pamphlet, because, you know, the kids just aren’t getting enough of that in the school systems these days.

Patchouli Sally should not be approached under any circumstances unless you have plenty of time to waste listening to breathless droning about the evils of today’s world. This species can be found in the company of many dirty children who are in need of both Ritalin and a strong father figure, whom they are constantly admonishing for acting like…children. Patchouli Sally does not actually read anything in the library, since books are tools of a fascist government anyways.

Skate Rat

Skate Rat can be found in the Library’s bathroom smoking a joint. They generally do nothing inside the library and only come into the building to cool down on hot days; however they tend to frighten the hell out of most of the other patrons with their teen-angst and wild hair styles. After yet another fruitless day of being a 19 year old virgin, scaring the shit out of library security guards, and picking half-smoked cigarettes out of the outside ashtrays, they go home where mommy has a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (Wonder bread with the crusts cut off) and a glass of 2% milk waiting for them.

Femme Facebook

This species is usually from the dirt-poor, white trash end of town where internet service is not available to the general public since no sane person would go into the ghetto to install it. Somehow, Femme Facebook has discovered the internet and wants to post pictures of her fat ass so that all the boys in her Section 8 building can ogle at her gargantuan charms. The entire point of what a library is for is lost on Femme Facebook as they do not know how to read, nor do they have any other motive than to get knocked up by one of the local boys and bring yet another brood of spandex wearing slobs into the world. Fabulous facts:

• Since the Nova isn’t running, they take the bus to the Library.
• They spend more time raising their hair than they do raising their children.
• Will put you off eating cottage cheese forever.
• That huge cursive tattoo on her left boob that says “Franco” is in reference to her deceased brother Frank, not her third ex-husband Frank.
• They may also be using the internet to peruse Wal-Mart’s website in order to see if any NASCAR memorabilia has gone into the markdown bins yet.

The Audiophile

This skinny, pimple-faces species can be found wandering around the listening rooms and amid the racks of CDs. They generally do nothing other than sneer at other patron’s musical choices as their opinion is far more weighty and impressive than anybody else’s. What they listen to:

• The Police. But only the pre-Synchronicity stuff, as the newer albums are all full of corporate bullshit. That fucker, Sting, sold out, man.
• The Tijuana Brass album with the naked chick on the cover.
• Jazz CDs which they do not actually listen to, but only carry around to look more remarkable.
• Their one secret vice: Brittany Spears. Any of these CDs will be at the bottom of their pile, hidden in case another audiophile happens to be checking them out.
• Camper Van Beethoven, who was snubbed by musical critics and listeners alike, due to the fact that nobody “got” the band.
• Anything by Billy Corgan, who is both the godfather and the blueprint for anything screamo that followed after the Smashing Pumpkins demise.
• ELO
• That one vinyl LP that Gloria Gaynor did back in 1984, because the Audiophile has an actual turntable in their home and because Gloria was a huge talent that was snubbed by an uninformed public. What the fuck is an LP?

When the Audiophile is checking out his 47 selections, he will often be amazed at the fact that the library offers up all this music for free. He or she will then go home and rip all of their CDs so that they can then upload their obviously superior musical offerings. They will then wonder why nobody is downloading their obviously top-quality selections, cretins.

Angry Black Guy

Angry Black Guy towers above six feet tall, weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 pounds, and usually looks like he has just been released on parole. However, Angry Black Guy as a name is a misnomer, since he is not angry at all, and is usually one of the few people who uses the library for its intended purpose. A far more fair name for this species would be “Friendly Older Black Gentleman,” but the world is a shitty place which does not work that way. Angry Black Guy can be found:

• In the Literature section, reading something interesting, poignant, and literally speaking, important.
• In the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section. That Piers Anthony guy sure is funny!
• In the home improvement section, looking for books on how to build a deck.
• Joking around with the librarians at the checkout desk, usually while they are sharing photos of their grandchildren; little David is all grown up now and will be attending Stanford next fall!
• Awkwardly trying to not step on the pack of children that are racing around his gargantuan, tree-like legs.
• Asking the librarian where the books on gardening are located as there are aphids on his tomatoes.
• Getting hassled by police officers in the parking lot.

Granny

As a rule, most elderly women prefer book stores over libraries as they can get their books more rapidly and then get home before they are attacked. Going to a library is a frightening and time consuming undertaking that will always lead to being mugged by Angry Black Guy or raped by Skate Rat. Even still, Granny will occasionally appear at the library, if only to attend a quilting seminar in one of the conference rooms.

Library Fun

The library will often host meetings or events designed to improve funding for the public library system. They also have contests and book clubs that are in place to foster interest in reading to normal, everyday citizens. A quick once-over of the community bulletin board will quickly inform library users of the following great library programs:

• On Thursday night, in the library theater, there will be a screening of the 1917 silent thriller “The Wolfman,” which has not been removed from its canister since 1917 and is probably made of flammable nitrate film stock, so no cell phone use please!
• The Summer Reading Contest. This event attempts to divert children from more important pursuits such as Playstations, Xboxes, MySpace, and the internet by making them (gasp) read books. And get this: should a child actually win the contest, the prize is…more books.
• SAT/PSAT tutoring every week in conference room B. As if kids old enough to worry about those tests would ever set foot in a library, let alone read the community bulletin board.
• Shakespeare in the Park. Every Sunday night, patrons will be granted an exquisite portrayal of some of the Bard’s greatest plays. Also, they will be granted mosquito bites, packs of annoying children throwing glow sticks at each other, and a really crappy version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” put on by people who think that the only reason why they aren’t famous and in Hollywood is because their college drama teacher hated them. Should you wish to attend, please bring a blanket so you don’t accidentally sit on some dog shit.
• There is a garage sale to be held on June 15th at 1378 Wilshire drive. Oh goddamnit, how did this get on the community bulletin board?
• Beginning on October 1st, 2007, the library will be offering free Wi-Fi access to its patrons. Now library users will no longer be tied down to the facilities own computers, but can now access their porn without the fear of getting kicked out of the library.
• Mrs. Zimmerman’s 3rd grade class supplied the artwork that is posted in the Lobby. Please stop using the art as a place to stick your unwanted and used chewing gum.
• On August 12th, fire engine company 8 will be hosting a seminar on fire prevention and safety. It is hoped that this year’s attendance will dwarf last year’s turnout of 5 disinterested people.

Trolling The Library

• Move all religious books or books purporting to be religious to the fiction section
• Place spoilers in every Stephenie Meyer or J.K. Rowling book
• Talk really loudly on our phone
• Watch gay porn on the computers, bonus points if the computers are located near the children's area
• Read along with people by bending over their shoulders to look at their book
• Fap
• Wander around with some friends LOL, you don't have any friends and loudly complain about a topic of your choosing
• Start an argument with the librarian when you receive a late fee
• Scream

See Also

• Your own local public library. You haven’t been there since that summer after 7th grade and they miss you.

References

Public Library is a part of a series on Old Stuff

Dan's Devil's Dictionary | Charles Bukowski | Bookz | New York Yankees | G/tv | Kyleville | Ellen's Hickey | Generic Article | A User's Guide to Article Building | Introduction to English | Salman Rushdie | Rainmeter | Sex Panther | A Pocketknife | Thomas Paine | Wook | Three Or Four Weeks | Internet Relevance | Jim Rome | DMV | Public Library | The Copperhead | Monopoly | Around the House | Marcus P. Kellum’s Personal Journal | Solitaire | Internet Explorer | Billy Ripken | Ka-chunk | Clacka-Clacka | Mickey Mantle | Terry Tate Office Linebacker | Berry | 1guy1jar | Babcock Dairy Farm | Goatse.cx | Old Hoss Radbourn | Rufus Owned A Steam Engine | Blanche Dumas | Thundarr The Barbarian | Superfriends | That Time Is Now | Hong Kong Phooey | Fractured Fairy Tales | Little Twelvetoes | Mullet Girl | Hanker For A Hunk O' Cheese | The Chopper | Yuck Mouth | The Angle Of The Dangle | Michelob | Bulova Computron | Vinko Bogataj | Lower Case, Upper Case, and Shift