Small plush squids say “RAWR”

Anybody know where this takes place? Or who made it? Or anything?

Thanks, Carol Dickerson!

Addendum May 3: Carol tells me it’s the Trinity University Library in San Antonio, Texas.

Where have the unicorns gone?

The American Library Association celebrated National Library Week this year with a book spine poetry contest. They’ve created a Flickr set of all the entries. Congratulations to the winner, elizabeth-3! Thanks, Emily Lloyd; I wouldn’t have known about this if not for you.

museum shenanigans of the 1920s

Okay, so this isn’t precisely a library shenanigan, but it’s close enough, I think — people tend to elide museums and libraries.

On May 10, 1922, Colorado College students removed taxidermied animals from the college museum in Palmer Hall and placed them all over campus. This shenanigan was apparently in protest of then-president of the college, Clyde Duniway, whose policies were unpopular with students: he limited the times when men could visit women’s dormitories; strictly enforced chapel attendance; and fired a football coach for using profanity on the field. 350 students (about half the total enrollment) signed a petition complaining about Duniway, to no avail. The animals prank was one of several that spring: students also released hydrogen sulfide in one classroom building and somehow got a live cow up to the second floor of another.

In January of 1929, CC students again placed the museum animals around campus, this time to protest the firing of the editor of the student newspaper.

Source: J. Juan Reid, Colorado College: The First Century (1979), chapter V, “Controversy and Student Unrest.”

art from library cards

The Library Card Project at the American Craft Council has yielded some lovely things, but I had to take down the image I linked to them because they don’t allow re-posting of images. They do allow me to link, so I’ve linked from their name.

This isn’t the first time artists have used library materials, of course — Giselle Restrepo has worked with library check-out cards (see image at left), and Alice Walsh uses library cards in her book work, to name just a couple of other practitioners. Thanks, Kathleen Kirk!

Ripon College After Dark: Danger in the Library

Scary AND hilarious video and event at Lane Library, Ripon College, Ripon, Wisconsin. I wonder if we should do this at Tutt Library. Thanks, David Graham!

25 mini-adventures in the library

Mama Scout has some fantastic ideas here. I especially like the idea of the Kind Bomb in the library. Some of these ideas are more shenaniganish than others, of course. “Take a present to the librarians” is a nice one! Thanks, Heather McHale, for this one.

Flash mob at Tutt Library, Colorado College

Man, I wish I could have seen this. It took place on Tuesday, February 12, at 8:30 p.m., and lasted 3 minutes and 16 seconds, the duration of the song “The Harlem Shake” by Baauer (2013, more information here).

The UT-Austin library also took part in this meme:

Thanks, Steve Lawson and Joan Petit!

A wedding in the library!

In February of 2013, Barbara Morrow and David Kurland were married in the Northwest History Room at the Everett Public Library in Washington State. A librarian performed the ceremony. Best quote from the Paris Review article: “Following cake with the staff, the bride renewed her library card.”

I’m surprised there aren’t more weddings in libraries, when I think about it.

Thanks, Dina Wood!

Oreo ad library shenanigan

Apparently, this ad aired during the Superbowl yesterday. I missed it, but several people let me know about it. I only wish people really did whisper whenever they were in the library. I confess I have shushed, and been shushed, both. Thanks, everybody!

Climbing the library!

At Portland State University in 1988, at least one student attempted to climb the library building as part of the Outdoor Program’s “Halloween Climb.”

Here at Colorado College, students have attempted to climb various campus buildings over the years, but not, as far as we know, the library.

Thanks, Joan Petit!