This is not a heartwarming tale of good-hearted librarians adopting a stray cat and naming it Dewey. It does involve a library–the tiny Winslow Public Library in Arizona–and some cats. It’s a long story as to how I heard about this troublesome situation, but suffice it to say that it involves good friends of mine who have strong ties to this small Navajo reservation town and a close relationship with the librarian there. One of the friends recently visited the library on a trip to Santa Fe, and was told that the latest teen “amusement” is to round up a couple of stray cats at night and slide them through the book drop. The staff arriving in the morning find the cats wandering around the library, apparently unharmed, but not necessarily 
pleased to be stuck in the library. So my friend reports that the librarian is trying to think of something that would allow large-ish items through (think children’s and oversized books), but not allow cats to slide through. There are absolutely no funds for purchasing a new cat-proof book drop system even if there is such a thing, so perhaps some clever device could do the trick. If you have any ideas, I guess you should contact the folks in Winslow.
Maybe there is an upside to this situation: I’ll bet the Winslow library is about as rodent-free as a place could be.
Barbara L.
evanstonpubliclibrary.wordpress.com 
Awful. But, I have to ask, Is there some kind of proof that this is something teens are doing?
-jarrett
Not sure. This is, of course, anecdotal, relayed by my friend. She said the library staff was pretty sure kids were doing the pranks.
Barb
Teens? Cats? Pshaw. At the library where I work in northern New England we’ve got a roving band of feral senior citizens who get all hopped up on Metamucil and then jam moose through our drop slot. Until you’ve squeegeed antler off a dust jacket at 8am, you’ve got no right to complain, AZ.
And for the record, we know it’s seniors doing the moosing because our prone-to-wildly-jumping-to easy-conclusions, prejudiced guts told us so. Funny thing about a prejudiced gut: it’s never wrong.
I am writing a novel which includes a scene from the Winslow Library. I cannot tell you what a gem this thread has been. I couldn’t have made this up.