Don Saklad has generated a fair number of laughs over the years, both intentional and incidental. Here we highlight some of Don's intentionally humorous posts (at least, we think they were intentionally humorous), and one humorous post written at Don's expense.

In this post, Don apparently intends to gather together humorous and entertaining items about BPL and other libraries, and asks for contributions from others. The subject heading he uses is also the same name he gave to his home page, so perhaps he intended to post them there. So far, he seems not to have done anything further with this.

Guide to Problematical Library Use 
Author:   Don Saklad <dsaklad@berne.ai.mit.edu>
Date:   1998/11/09
Forum:   soc.history

Please contribute instructive text, humor, farce, illustrations, graphics, charts, etc. to a continuing Guide to Problematical Library Use focused on but not limited to Boston Public Library.

Share hints, tips and pointers.

Find out how to use our BPL's overly embedded collections and bureaucratic public library reference services more effectively and efficiently.

. Profiles of BPL curatorial personnel and their interests.

. Organizational charts of curatorial departments, supervisory, management, administrative and union collective bargaining labor relations links.

. Urban public Library long range planning reports and related information.

. Curatorial departments annual reports to BPL's president Bernie Margolis.

. City of Boston Public Library department board minutes and agendas. http://192.80.65.16/WWW/trustees.html

Don Saklad 2 Linwood Place Cambridge MA 02139-1525 USA
tel. & fax 617-661-9650

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Museum/2464
alternate email: dsaklad@gnu.org

Read the entire post on DejaNews.

Sometimes, you just hope that Don is kidding, as with this set of suggestions he drafted for BPL users.

Subject: BPL tips -draft
From: dsaklad@hotmail.com
Date: 1998/02/28
Newsgroups: soc.libraries.talk

10. Telephone several times ahead of each visit to confirm information about any collections and resources that you many use and to confirm initial responses because response about BPL collections and services may vary. 9. Obtain a directory of BPL curatorial people from the lib itself or from city hall. 8. Post your own hints, tips and pointers to the net for others. 7. Review the materials posted on bulletin boards adjacent to or in the lib's departmental reading rooms like the bulletin boards at BPL's government documents and science departments. 6. Review the background profiles of important BPL curatorial people, available from BPL executive offices or city hall public records. 5. Distinguish between information that explains what you can not do from information about what you can do that excites or inspires further energies using the lib. 4. Assemble a packet of the usual distributed library leaflets, flyers, brochures, booklets, et al for at home reference. 3. Participate in the lib's visiting committees, called the Examining Subcommittees open meetings with feedback, comment, suggestions and questions about improving the lib. 2. Invite one of the lib's people to lunch. 1. Read "The Real Sheet" newsletter available from BPL microtext department's Henry Scannell, tel. 617-536-5400 [sort, revise, delete] 11. Review BPL president Bernie Margolis' cabinet meeting minutes and individual BPL departmental annual reports of each department head, available from the BPL executive offices or via Massachusetts State Secretary Public Records Division's Michael Pierce, tel. 617-727-2832

Read the entire post on DejaNews.

Always wanting to contribute to library culture, Don can be a fountain of ideas, at times.

Subject: library patron wrestling a vehicle for moving ideas
From: dsaklad@berne.ai.mit.edu (Don Saklad)
Date: 1996/09/16
Newsgroups: soc.libraries.talk

here's an idea for a nifty library development fund raising event. set up library patron wrestling in your urban public library lobby. maybe hulk hogan or your library's version of his character would accept patron challenges to raise library or literacy support. or are you too much of a wimp?

an accompanying booklist and display of books and recordings could focus on some contact sports, choreography and contact dance improvisation.

ref.: contact quarterly

Read the entire post on DejaNews.

This is Don's response to a post initiated by someone else in soc.libraries.talk. One almost gets the feeling that Don is simply relaying things that have happened to him, but we'll assume that it's humor anyway. For comparison, Don has another, similar post which can be viewed here, but which makes a little less sense.

Subject: Re: things to do with problem patrons (humor)
From: Don Saklad <dsaklad@berne.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 1997/08/18
Newsgroups: soc.libraries.talk

Refer them to the bastard librarian from hell desk...

Never give a clue to any alternative ways to use the lib, go over and over what can not be done or what is not allowed...

Fool your colleagues. Tell them the novice library personnel are problem patrons...

Fool your colleagues. Tell them the problem patrons are novice library personnel.

Raise and lower your voice as they move around the reading room in a kind of synchrony as they go here and there...

Humiliate them...

Ask them, "I thought you were banned from the public library!?..."

Spread a rumor that they are the children of one of the bastard librarians from hell...

Refer them only to periodical indexes...

Leave out a crucial part of a reference response...

Bait them with stares...

Tell them, "We already answered that!"...

Tell them, "You asked that already!"...

Escalate their frustration with a too coolly mannered response...

Ask them "Why do I hear so many complaints about you?"...

Send back call slips marked "Not on shelf."...

Set up a matching service for them with troubled librarians...

Hide the building directory...

Hide the schedule of events, activities and meetings...

Refuse to give out any information until they know what information
they are looking for already...

Read the entire post on DejaNews.

Again, we think this post was an attempt at humor, but you can't always be sure with Don. You can sense the theme in Don's humor by this time, though.

Librarian tricks of the trade 
Author:   dsaklad <dsaklad@hotmail.com>
Date:   1998/02/13
Newsgroups:   soc.libraries.talk

Librarian tricks of the trade: 1. Tease the library user with partial information omitting the precise thing the library user wants to know. 2. Respond to an adult library user as if they were a manchild or womanchild. 3. Respond to a different question using the words of the library user's question. 4. Refer the library user to another department. Contact that department and warn them to give that library user the "treatment". 5. Tell the library user to put the request in writing. Tell the library user who writes, to visit in person. 6. Delay followup to routine requests for library services. 7. Give the next library user VIP enhanced service in view of the previous library user to whom response had been dismissive. After giving VIP enhanced service to a library user respond dismissively to the next person. 8. Record only satisfied responses in service quality studies. 9. Report mostly satisfied library users/customers/consumers comments to the library board. 10. Report the library users/customers/consumers who have felt dissatisfied to the library board in the context that the comments are from more looney types of people.

Read the entire post on DejaNews.

Every once in a while, someone will write something about Don in a humorous vein. On of the more amusing posters (and a true net.legend) is James "Kibo" Parry, founder of alt.religion.kibology. The following post is also available on Kibo's web page in a little section he's devoted to Don.

Don Saklad's Day (was: Re: Way to go...) 
Author:   James "Kibo" Parry <kibo@world.std.com>
Date:   1997/12/02
Forum:   alt.religion.kibology

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present

                     D O N     S A K L A D ' S    D A Y
                 ==============================

        Don Saklad's life is Copyright (C) 1997 James "Kibo" Parry.
    Do not live Don Saklad's life without written permission from Kibo.

4:00am -- wake up
4:01am -- call Boston Public Library to ask when they open
4:02am -- write down that at 4:01am they said 9:00am and that this note
           was made at 4:02am
4:03am -- leave for Boston Public Library
4:04am -- count the number of cracks in the sidewalk on the way
4:05am -- after stepping on a crack by accident, go back and start over
4:06am -- write down the license number of the bad boys who yelled swear words
4:19am -- arrive at BPL
4:20am -- check the back door to see if it's also locked
4:21am -- wait patiently by the front door for them to open
4:22am -- buy coffee at the Dunkin' Donuts across the street
4:23am -- use their bathroom
4:24am -- try the library doors again
4:25am -- check the library dumpster for discarded evidence of the cover-up
4:26am -- use the Dunkin' Donuts bathroom again
4:27am -- try to get into the library through the book return slot. Fail.
4:28am -- wait impatiently by the front door
4:29am -- begin tapping foot exactly 1,666 times, no less, no more
4:48am -- use the Dunkin' Donuts bathroom again
5:14am -- finish tapping foot. Make a note of it.
5:15am -- start tapping foot another 1,666 times to do a re-count for accuracy.
5:29am -- altercation with homeless man who does not seem to CARE about
           the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY CONSPIRACY and seems DERANGED!!!
5:32am -- resume waiting patiently by the front door
5:33am -- check the back door again
5:51am -- use the Dunkin' Donuts bathroom again
5:55am -- fall asleep in Dunkin' Donuts.
10:20am -- wake up at the exact same time LINCOLN WAS SHOT!
10:21am -- run across the street to the library.
10:22am -- go back and cross the street after looking both ways like the
           policeman said to.
10:23am -- enter the library. Ask a security guard what happened between
           5:55am and 10:23am.
10:24am -- When they say they don't know, write their badge number down.
           Ask the name of their supervisor.
10:25am -- Write down "Jack Sprat" like they said.
10:26am -- use the BPL men's room.
10:27am -- count all the books in the BPL.
2:18pm -- count all the entries in the card catalog.
4:42pm -- okay, so they have the same number. But perhaps DIFFERENT books
           have been censored from each! Spread card catalog out on floor
           to compare.
4:43pm -- Hide from library guards in BPL men's room. Also use men's room.
4:47pm -- begin counting the number of bricks in the BPL.
4:48pm -- start over when distracted by the nutty person down the aisle
           who is counting the number of light bulbs in the BPL.
5:02pm -- break for dinner in the cookbook section.
5:23pm -- realize that no library personnel have bothered you for almost
           an hour. Start showing your library card to all of them, saying,
           "I HAVE THE CARD, SO I HAVE A RIGHT TO BE HERE" until someone
           disagrees with you.
5:24pm -- make a scene.
5:25pm -- use the BPL men's room again.
5:28pm -- check the paper supply in all library Xerox machines. Try to get
           dimes out by putting chewing gum on a piece of fishing line. Fail.
5:32pm -- try to get gum out of hair. Start shouting "STOP STARING AT ME!!!
           I HAVE A LIBRARY CARD!!!"
5:37pm -- make a joke about the BPL having VPL. Fail to explain joke
           because saying "VPL" makes you all giggly.
5:41pm -- discover some weenie has locked the bathroom door. Run across
           street to Dunkin' Donuts. Injure bladder trying to go through
           BPL turnstile the wrong way.
5:44pm -- upon returning, discover the BPL has closed and moved to a secret
           location to prevent you from discovering THE SHOCKING TRUTH OF
           THE SECRET PUBLIC LIBRARY.
5:45pm -- go to a trendy cybercafe to surf the Internet.
5:46pm -- discover that you've been called "a few fries short of a Happy Meal"
           on a mailing list. Proudly repost it to alt.religion.kibology,
           where everyone deeply cares that your public library fetish was
           impugned. LIBRARY FETISHISM IS A SERIOUS MATTER!!!
5:57pm -- go home to watch "Who's The Boss?" and try to solve the mystery
           of who the boss is.
5:58pm -- fall asleep with library card clutched in right hand. It falls
           out of the hand and lands in the cat's dish. The cat eats it.

SEE DON SAKLAD RUN THE CAT THROUGH THE LIBRARY'S BAR CODE SCANNER!
TUNE IN TOMORROW, SAME TIME, SAME DEWEY DECIMAL CODE!

                                        -- K.
                                        I realize that no GOOD library
                                        uses the Dewey Decimal System, but
                                        the LOC code wouldn't work there:
                                        The Dewey Decimal System is WACKY.

                                        And Don, lest you get the wrong
                                        impression, you're welcome to
                                        post your library adventures to
                                        alt.religion.kibology. Just be
                                        warned that some of the people
                                        there, like Gardner Trask, are
                                        pulling the strings of the
                                        BPL's puppet board of directors.

Read the entire post on DejaNews.