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A custodian on July 15 discovered hateful graffiti scrawled in a Fletcher Free Library restroom in Burlington, Vermont, that included a swastika and a racial epithet. Library Director Mary Danko and Mayor Miro Weinberger condemned the act as hate speech in a statement issued the following day. “Our library is and must be a safe and welcoming place for everyone,” said Danko. “Our support of free speech does not translate into tolerance for hate speech.”

Seven Days (Burlington, Vt.), July 21
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Susan Falciani writes: “On the evening of December 7, 1981, Dianne Melnychuk, serials librarian at the Haas Library at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, noticed an unfamiliar gray-haired man of early middle age lingering around the card catalog near her desk. He had attempted to appear inconspicuous by way of nondescript, almost slovenly dress, but at almost six-and-a-half feet tall, with a 225-pound frame, he stood out. A few months earlier, a photo of this man, who went by the name James Richard Shinn, had appeared in an article.”

Atlas Obscura, July 20
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ALA President Jim Neal writes: “In addition to the many remarkable speakers and presentations that made our Annual Conference a rich educational experience, we made important progress on our four strategic directions: advocacy; information policy; professional and leadership development; and equity, diversity, and inclusion. As I assume the responsibilities of ALA president for 2017–2018, I want to emphasize my core vision. We must dare to be bold, courageous, and challenging.”

American Libraries column, July/Aug.
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Abby Noland, director of the Gleason Public Library in Carlisle, Massachusetts, on July 20 came across live military shells from the Civil War inside a closet in her office. It was her first day on the job. The shells, part of a Gettysburg collection donated years ago, were inside a box with a label explaining they had been examined by a munitions expert and could be live. She notified the police, whose bomb squad rendered the shells safe.

Associated Press, July 20
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Trinity College’s Watkinson Library in Hartford, Connecticut, received a donation of about 10,000 comic books and 200 graphic novels dating from the 1950s to the present from a Minnesota collector. Richard Ring, Watkinson’s head curator and librarian, said these are the first comic books in the library’s collection. The collection was donated by Marcus Leab, a middle-school English teacher in Maple Grove, Minnesota, and son of Katharine Kyes Leab, editor of American Book Prices Current.

Hartford (Conn.) Courant, July 20
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Mark Dzula writes: “Laughter is a peculiar beast in a library space. Although we want to encourage a mindful and welcoming space for people who want to get work done, we should also be aware of the merits of laughter as an act of communication—could there be such a thing as a literacy of laughter? Anca Parvulescu’s book Laughter: Notes on a Passion traces its treatment in western culture through a wide variety of media. It is the perfect book for librarians.”

Knowledge Quest blog, July 21
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Stephanie E. Smith writes: “Recently, after a 40-year, 10-month, and 27-day absence, a long-missing item was finally returned to the Indiana State Library in Indianapolis. Arriving in a USPS box, the package was postmarked from Arlington, Virginia. The book inside, James Dean by William Bast, was well-worn and much-used and checked out from the library on August 23, 1976. It must have also moonlighted as a coaster at some point. It is clearly never too late to return an overdue library book.”

Indiana State Library, July 20