Posted on by Erica Firment

Want to volunteer at the library? Pass a drug test, sister.

Ah, Gainesville. Come for the Snowy Egrets, stay for the affronts to human dignity!

Bill Mahr at The Huffington Post wrote an excellent screed last week about Levy County Florida’s county-wide drug screening policy which has cut the library’s volunteer population by 3000%.

egretsmoking.pngMahr is slightly fuzzy on the details of our favorite profession, referring to librarians interchangeably as 1) Grandma 2) Aunt Iris 3) America’s shsssshing minority and 4) Volunteers.

Still, he has a point. Why torture volunteers? Should the County’s “risk-management Insurance company” really have the power to take down the library system? Is this an acceptable risk?

I wonder if anyone considered the cost/benefit of this decision. Essentially, the County Government (whom we know are always the embodiment of common sense and long-term planning) has reduced library services in exchange for relief from imaginary hordes of crank-shooting elderly volunteers.

Related posts:

Default ThumbnailMy friend Gus wants to give you a job Frikking LaserFAQ Default ThumbnailI grant you Librarians love Liquor

4 Replies to “Want to volunteer at the library? Pass a drug test, sister.”

  1. Hi Mike,
    yes, that’s true. at that moment i was too busy at work and had no time to search for English info on the matter. unfortunately it is busy again today.
    as an information professional do i always need to mention my source, right? even when it is in Dutch ;)

    short translation:
    the sign was introduced in Amsterdam in January 2006 (noth months are mentioned. i just looove wiki). due to its popularity it was stolen very very often and the council (and other parties) started to sell the sign on the internet.

  3. did you know that the sign that you posted is an official Blowverbodsbord in the Netherlands? ever since the introduction in Amsterdam, in December 2005, the sign has been stolen and stolen, over and over again.

    fyi :D

  4. Hey perhaps the volunteering has decreased b/c the grannies are all smoking the chronic. Don’t be age-ist. Of course, if they were lit all the time then you would think they’d be more mellow then the library volunteers I’ve been exposed to. Although, they do frequently bring chocolate and cookies….hmmm post doobie munchies?

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