A Redditor asked users “Librarians of reddit: What’s the strangest thing you’ve found in the book drop?” and people shared some of their most hilarious, weird, and terrifying finds.
Source can be found at the bottom of the article.
1/15. Aside from locks of hair and bank receipts, the weirdest thing I ever found was what looked like what I can only best describe as a printing template for fake dollar bills.
– absolute_ablative
2/15. I worked as a page for a couple years and we always check the DVD cases when they are returned. Well, I found this one case and it had a blank disc inside of it instead of the correct DVD. If I remember correctly, it was a Morgan Freeman movie. I asked my boss what I should do and he instructed me to pop the DVD into the computer. Low and behold, the blank DVD was a porno and I was welcomed by a pair of boobs on my work screen. But that’s not the weirdest part. My boss called the patron and told them there was a mix-up and the wrong DVD was returned in the case. A few hours later, a little old lady walks into the library, apologizes for the mix up, and takes the porno DVD. That was a strange day.
-dearjune_
3/15. Found antique medical equipment. I managed to track the guy down and give it back to him. He had passed it onto his daughter who was also a doctor, and she accidentally donated it with a box full of books.
– cojafoji
4/15. By far the most amusing was a spiral bound notebook that was full of poorly written rap lyrics. It was relatively full, and I read quite a few while trying to identify the owner. I never found a name, so I put it in the lost and found. Sadly, it wasnt claimed during the semester I worked there.
– seltzerisgood
5/15. Dewey the Library Cat was a famous resident cat who was found in a book drop as a kitten. A contest was held to pick a name, and “Dewey Readmore Books” was officially added to the staff.
-MdmeLibrarian
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6/15. You’d be surprised how many people use their credit cards as bookmarks.
Also, personal medical information… And notes and cards from their kids… It breaks my heart to shred an “I love you daddy” card, but if we have no idea whose it is, we have to.
-AlfishKK
7/15. my buddy worked at a library and told me similar things regarding band-aids, poop, etc. he got sick pretty regularly working there. they also had a problem with old people watching porn on computers right by the children’s section. from all the stories he told me – never going to a library again.
fun fact – it’s your constitutional right to view porn at the library. murica.
– notsferatu
8/15. Had someone put a whole salmon in it one year when we were closed for Christmas. Thing festered and rotted for 2 days it did not smell nice.
-musicman835
9/15. On separate occasions:
A bra
Porn dvds
Library dvds that have cockroaches in the cases
A vhs tape that had a handwritten label that read “Crazy Dragon” – oh how we wanted to see what was on that tape… but we had no vcr 🙁
A diary entry page used as a bookmark (cant remember the book) that was about a girls first period. She later came in looking for it, frantically. Someone had thrown it away the day before she came in, but she was still upset we didn’t have it.
Aside from that, people were dicks and left garbage and random junk mail in them. And the worst is when they would put av materials in the book bins. THEY ARE CLEARLY LABLED.
-br0connor
10/15. A book that was 16 years overdue. Luckily the max penalty our library charges is $5.
-chuck_not_norris
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11/15. At my school, someone left half-finished coursework in the library book-drop He put it up on a board so it would be claimed but before it was, one of the teachers decided to grade it, quite cruelly. It wasn’t collected.
-reubengor
12/15. Oh glob, where to begin. I’ve found:
$100 bill.
Used bandaids.
Subpoenas.
Plane ticket.
Photographs.
Letters.
Watches.
All kinds of food & beverages. (Oreos, cheez-its, sandwich crumbs, purple drank cans)
Books from the wrong library (this happens all the time)
Pads/tampons.
Condoms.
One time a suicide note- we notified the police for that one. Never heard an update though.
I’ll never forget the time I was unloading the drive-thru book drop and heard this little girl. She was asking her mother about the drop, seemingly very curious and interested in it. She decides to experiment by dropping a single animal cracker. Then another. And another. I’m chuckling at this point, finding it amusing how excited she’s getting watching the crackers disappear down the chute. About 20 crackers later (this girl was going ham, mind you), her mom decides it’s time to drop the books in and puts them all in at once. Crrrruuunnch. The crackers at the bottom practically explode from the impact, causing the little girl to squeal with glee at the sound. I now realized that I would know have to clean up this mess, a real FML moment. It turned out that some of these crackers were in her mouth and were wet and soggy, making them smush into the books.
-Irlyn
13/15. A DVD case that was somehow filled with live cockroaches. They were pretty small, so I’m guessing that they were recently hatched. I was the lucky person who opened the case. God, the horror.
-SirReginaldPennycorn
14/15. Mustard, Mayo, and Ketchup. Three days in a row this mystery bastard was damaging tons of our shit. We finally caught them though, it turned out to be an old senile women. I think she got charged with vandalism and she received hefty fine.
Another time some guy poured our outdoor ashtray into the book drop, that fucking sucked. This other time someone put a bunch of dead lizards down the drop. Pretty sure it was a pissed off homeless guy on that occasion, he might also have been the ashtrayer.
-Youreallpuffs
15/15. A pair of panties with a sticky note that said “You and your books excite me. Thanks for turning me on to reading.”
She had particularly good penmanship for a 9-year-old, I tell ya what.
-Oafah