nasty book returns

[KellyHabersham]

About an hour or so before I went on my lunch break at the library today, we had a "lovely" patron return several books in the bookdrop which smelled like dirty diapers, and had a dried brownish crust smeared on the covers. Needless to say, this man will be charged for the books, they will have to be discarded, and I'd love to hear his explanation for why the books were returned in that condition.

[NightWatch]

Ya know... I don't think that I do want to know what happened to those books.

[One-Fang]

Ew. I'd charge him for any other books that were in the bin that they came in contact with, too!

[KellyHabersham]

Fortunately "Mr. Poopy's" items were the only ones in the bookdrop at the time.......otherwise I would've done what I could to insure that he was charged for contaminating someone else's returns. (although it's actually the circulation staff who process the billing for damaged items/have to deal with the patrons regarding it)

[Kiwi]

and K wonders why I use disinfectant wipes on the covers of the library books and dvds I get each week

[Misanthropical]

I'm sure this guy will say they were that way when he checked them out.

[flygirl]

I'm sure this guy will say they were that way when he checked them out.

Yeah, and then he'll threaten to sue the library for giving out poopy-covered books.

[SailorMan]

I was once talking to a clerk in a used book store, when a woman came up and tried to sell books that obviously came from a garbage can! I mean, coffee grounds, coffee stains, water stains... and smelly to boot!

[Ill_Used_Heroine]

I'm sure this guy will say they were that way when he checked them out.

When they say that, I always ask incredulously, "They were like that when you took them off the shelf and you STILL checked them out?!"

Of course, then I go into the "we would have charged the previous patron and discarded them as damaged if they came back like this, and there's no way in hell that we would have put books in this condition on the shelves for patrons to borrow, and besides, we would never have checked them out to you in this condition, anyway, so no, you didn't get them like this" spiel.

They usually pay, and afterwards I always sweetly ask them if they would like to keep the books they damaged ... even more sweetly when they're really disgusting.

[KellyHabersham]

Well, I do know that Mr. Poopy is being charged for the damaged book which belonged to another library in the system, but am not sure what was done with the two books which belonged to our library. Either way, with the way our system works, he won't be able to do anything else with his library card until he pays for the damaged item(s).

[SylviasDaddy]

My experience has been that plenty of library books have the crap on the inside!

[computeraide]

That's ok. He'll probably just steal what he wants from now on.

[El Pollo Guerrera]

Well, now we know WHERE and WHEN he gets his reading done...

[KellyHabersham]

*an update of sorts.....posting because I'm none too happy with co-workers about it*

Last night I looked up "Mr. Poopy's" account because I was curious as to what might've happened with his damaged items, and apparently for the one book which he WAS charged for (which belonged to another library in the system, I think whoever handled the damaged items belonging to us just decided to delete them), our head circulation person cancelled the fee, and so he's not had to pay for any of the nasty items he returned. Granted, I was not present during any other transactions involving Mr. Poopy's items, and so I don't know the exact circumstances, but I'm more than a little bothered by idea that my co-workers at the circulation desk apparently feel it's okay for patrons to return poop-covered items.

[ShinyGreenApple]

Please tell me they were Terry Goodkind and/or Christopher Paolini books.

*runs away*