VANCOUVER – Months after libraries closed to the public in order to help stop the spread of COVID-19, librarians are sounding the alarm about increasing waves of break-ins caused by people frantic to be engulfed in the calming scent of books again.
“They’re picking door locks, jimmying windows, and most unpleasantly, coming up through the sewers, which frankly defeats the point since the smells they bring with them overpower the books,” says librarian Kevin Perrone.
“They’re a very well-read group, so no matter how hard we try to keep them out, they apply their vast knowledge of both fiction and non-fiction to find a way in. I myself was just the victim of an elaborate con job pulled off by a twelve-person team that resulted in them stealing my keys. And my heart.”
Once inside, most intruders caught by the security cameras are seen slowly wandering down the aisles in a daze, gently touching the books with reverence, and getting into arguments with other intruders about whose turn it is to look up swear words in the reference books.
“They usually run when they hear a librarian or security guard coming in,” Perrone says, “but some of them are so intoxicated by the presence of this much literature after months of book famine that we find them passed out naked in the poetry section, wearing nothing but a smile and one or two well-placed copies of the works of Emily Dickinson.”
Librarians are urging people to try to sate their overwhelming need for books with other means until the libraries reopen, suggesting biblio-fiends try to watch more television, play more video games, and if all else fails, read one of the dozens of books on their own shelves they still haven’t gotten around to yet.
