Secret messages found in library!

Secret message found in Weldon Library

Someone has been leaving coded messages in books at D.B. Weldon Library! Mike Moffat is keeping track of them in his blog over at Reflections on Southwestern Ontario.  What do they mean?  Who is leaving them?  They come with trinkets and drawings and are so far inscrutable. I love this kind of thing, which is why I rated Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore so highly in goodreads.

If your library has themed displays for the coming planting season, a seed library might be a good addition.  It seems seed libraries would be a good fit in Oregon.

Multnomah County Library is celebrating it's 150th anniversary this year, and Kelly House, a reporter at the Oregonian, was lucky enough to get a peek in some of the early historical records. The founders certainly had some beautiful penmanship.

There was a recent story about Google having the interiors of libraries available through Street View over on ebookfriendly.com, but they don't compare to the interior tour you can take of the Strahov Library, which is the worlds largest indoor picture as of March 2011.  It is beautiful.  You can take the tour (which might take a little too much time if you're at work) or you can click and pan and zoom on your own, and get closer than you ever could in real life.  The resolution is stunning.

Strahov Ceiling Detail

What's the holdup?

Umm... has this ever happened to you?  You're going through donated books and hello! A library employee in Indiana got a surprise last month.  The weirdest thing? It's not the first time.  Be careful in the book drop, fellow SSDers.

More library designs and donations

Check out these library designs - public and private.


Southern Oregon University library may get a great donation of early Oregon history.

More book sculptures (that aren't donations) that are simply amazing.

And I'm not sure how I missed this, there's an animated greeting from the anonymous sculptor who donated her book sculptures to libraries in Scotland:

A Book For Xmas from a book for xmas on Vimeo.

You can find the entire continuing story at thiscentralstation.com.

Mysterious Paper Sculptures

Have you all seen the amazing book sculptures left in libraries around Edinburgh?  They are really quite stunning.  And such a thoughtful and generous way to show appreciation for these essential institutions.

We get some lovely gifts from our patrons who sometimes bring us flowers or baked goods, and always hand them directly to us and get a big "thanks!".

The things we tend to receive anonymously are more on the weird side.  I swear I heard a story about someone finding teeth in the bookdrop one morning, but when trying to track down the source of that story, no one had heard it but me.  I'm sure I didn't make it up, though! Was it a misguided attempt to contact the tooth fairy?  A late night brawl in parking lot?

I know we've definitely had a kitten put in our bookdrop overnight. Quite the surprise for the morning crew! Fortunately, the kitten was not injured by books coming in on top of it and eventually found a good home.

What fabulous anonymous gifts has your library received? Or, barring that, what's the weirdest thing your library has received?