(no subject)

[darchildre]

We have a library patron who is bound and determined to give our branch a gift subscription to Vanity Fair. This is a very nice thing to want to do! The trouble is that this patron emailed us several times to ask how to donate a gift subscription, was told the procedure involved, and then emailed us again because they didn't want to do it that way. (There's a process and this person just wants to buy a subscription and have it sent to us, which is not the way we do things.)

Various supervisors, managers, and people involved in magazine purchasing have talked to this patron, with no result. They just keep emailing, insisting that they want to give us this magazine but only in the way they want to do it. Finally, we received a notice in the mail telling us that a gift subscription had been bought for us. The first issue arrived in the mail today.

The thing is, the library has a subscription to Vanity Fair, purchased through our magazine department. We've had it for years. We've told the patron this in every communication we've had with them but they insist that they want to buy a second one and clearly, they will not be dissuaded.

So now we're just going to get a second issue of Vanity Fair every month until the subscription lapses, I guess. And that second issue is going to go straight into the community center magazine exchange because, and I cannot stress this enough, we already have a subscription.

Comments

[sixbeforelunch]

o.O Why Vanity Fair of all things? Like it would make more sense to me if it were some obscure journal on a topic that this patron wants to make more widely known and they’re just bad at following directions, but I can’t see being that passionate about Vanity Fair.

People are weird.

[darchildre]

They are incredibly determined that we should have this subscription to a magazine that we already have a subscription to. The amount of times we have told them that they are trying to give us a thing that we already have and they have completely ignored that fact is amazing to me.

Fortunately, all communication with them has been email-only. I can't imagine trying to have a conversation face to face.

[frenchroast]

Omg, do not get me started on patron "donations". And how surprised the faculty gets when you tell professors no, we don't want their 13 boxes of random (dusty, outdated, sometimes moldy) books that they've accumulated in their office over 25+ years just because they're retiring and don't want to haul them home.

[darchildre]

Oh god, yes. No, we don't want your dad's collection of pop poli-sci books that have been moldering in his basement for the past fifty years! Or your outdated college text books! No one wants them!

[james]

People. All the times someone tries to donate food or clothes to places like food banks, etc, and they're all "If you're poor and need charity you'll be grateful for ANYTHING."

Just, no.

[silveradept]

On one of those situations, I'd love if someone could respond, "if you're sure they'll be grateful for anything, why are you trying to foist your very worst stuff on them?"

[silveradept]

Most charitably, perhaps they believe they can only get the write-off by doing it that specific way.

Least charitably, now that they know they can, you'll stay getting donated subscriptions for things you really don't want in the collection.

[maharetr]

Even in the giant swamp of "weird things people do" that's...an amazingly specific flavour of weird. wtF?

[sfred]

Argh, that sounds very frustrating!

[toft]

FFS.