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This title in other editionsFree for All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Libraryby Don Borchert
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:Mild-mannered librarian tells all in shocking new book! Not long ago, the public library was a place for the bookish, the eggheaded, and the studious — often seeking refuge from a loud, irrational, crude, outside world. Today, libraries have become free-for-all entertainment complexes filled with rowdy teens, deviants, drugs, and even sex toys. Lockdowns and chaperones are often necessary. What happened? Don Borchert was a short-order cook, door-to-door salesman, telemarketer, and Christmas-tree-chopper before landing a job in a California library. He never could have predicted his encounters with the colorful kooks, touching adolescents, threatening bullies, and tricksters who fill the pages of this hilarious memoir. In Free for All, Borchert offers readers a ringside seat for the unlikely spectacle of mayhem and absurdity that is business as usual at the public library. You'll see cops bust drug dealers who've set up shop in the men's restroom, witness a burka-wearing employee suffer a curse-ridden nervous breakdown, and meet a lonely, neglected kid who grew up in the library and still sends postcards to his surrogate parents — the librarians. In fact, from the first page of this comic debut to the last, you'll learn everything about the world of the modern-day library that you never expected. Review:"Jack-of-all-trades Borchert shares wholesome, guardedly witty dispatches from the suburban L.A. library system in this charming tell-all. For 12 years the family-man author has held the post of assistant librarian, keeping a wary eye on unruly kids, mollifying mystified parents and repairing sadly manhandled materials. Borchert relays a conversation with an aged librarian who reveals how it was in the good old days (staff lunches used to be served with wine), then contrasts that account with modern-day multicultural crayons and the preponderance of latchkey kids abandoned in the library for long, numbing afternoons. A few of the regular patrons are inspiring Renaissance types, but most are unsettling and unsavory, such as intensely reclusive crossword-puzzler Henry hounding the reference desk; loser Max looking futilely on the Internet for a South American wife; or the drug dealers working the restroom. From patrons who rack up hundreds of dollars in fines to missing pet rats and fist-fighting mothers, Borchert has seen it all, and his account gives a human interest spin to this undervalued profession." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Review:"Although the library can be a hangout for teens and a place to stash kids, Borchert and colleagues smile when a cast-out teenager finds a haven in the library and blossoms. Borchert, it seems, did too." Library Journal Review:"Librarians have often recorded their stories of lives led in public service, but Borchert's vantage point from within the clerical staff gives his voice and perspective unique authority." Booklist About the AuthorDon Borchert was a short-order cook, door-to-door salesman, telemarketer, Christmas tree chopper, editor, publicist for a national music chain and sod-farm employee before becoming, to his edification and astonishment, a librarian in a California public library. He lives in suburban Los Angeles and this is his first book. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!Average customer rating based on 3 comments:  
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