A Day at the Library

For those of you who don't know, in addition to pursuing my legal studies this semester and learning about cool things like "laughing heirs" (which you don't want, no matter how neat that sounds) I'm also working in the law library. In circulation of course. Now there's a vast difference between my old job at North Lake and this job here, the main one being that at North Lake I actually worked. Now if you know anything about how much work I did/did not do at North Lake, you'll get a sense of what it's like for me here. But all in all it's okay, as I basically get paid to sit here and study/read/blog/email/doze. The only complaint I have is about the chair I sit in,which is terminally un-adjustable, so that when I sit in it I'm either reclined so far back I look like I'm about to fall over, or I have to sit straight up and slouch over my books and the keyboard. I made the mistake of asking why this chair hasn't been replaced on my first day; my question was met with a blank stare, after which I have not dared to re-ask it. Resistence to change is a trait shared by all libraries, it would seem.

Another trait that the CUA law library shares with other libraries is wacky patrons. Now this library is intended to be used by just the law students here. Even other non-law students at CUA aren't that welcome. But in an effort to curry good favor with the community, the library does allow the good citizens of the community to come in and do legal research here. You would think that being a pretty small, pretty field-specific library, the school law library would probably fail to draw the attention of local nut-cases. You would be wrong.

One gentleman who's come to my attention is referred to as donut man. He's called that because he has a tendency to bring donuts to the staff when he visits. Unfortunately those donuts are grocery store donuts, usually at least 1 or 2 days out of date, if not more. No one eats donut man's donuts.

Believe it or not, people will also sneak into small, middle-of-the road law school libraries to use the computer to-of course-look at porn. At one time there were only four computers in this whole library that you didn't have to be a student to use. Those computers were in a pretty open place, right near the entrance of the library, where anyone coming in could walk by and catch a glimpse of one our public users...looking at porn. Those computers are no longer there.

It would seem the law library be a place of tension as well. I was told a story of how this past summer, fisticuffs broke out between some people arguing over who got to use the computers to-what else?-look at porn. If you guessed that these people were not students here, you would be right.

Needless to say, this library also finds itself utilizing the powerful tool of banning people from the library. From what I understand, there is a list of these banned people with approximate descriptions of them and their various crimes (sort of like a wanted poster) floating around here somewhere, though I have yet to see it. To my knowledge no one has been banned for following little girls around and peeping at them through the stacks, though the male students have a tendency to peep at the female students through the stacks. From my observations I have deduced that the female students generally don't mind such peeping.

So that's life in the law library. D.C. out.