Batty Library

While visitors to the Law School's Langdell Library may be pestered by a bat or two from time to time, students at Stanford University's Meyer Library have problems of a different magnitude.

Dozens of bats call the library home each year from just before Christmas until late spring, according to librarians there. Between six and eight, they say, are spotted by students daily.

Most students take the bats calmly. "They're sort of library pets, like library mascots," said David Swaddel, circulation manager for the library.

Infrequent library patrons, however, are sometimes surprised--"The bats do dive upon people sometimes if they've been disturbed, and some people don't really like that. But that's mostly people who don't use the library very much because they don't know the bats are here," said Meyer secretary Kathy Fehrn. "But we're used to it," she added. "For us it's just, 'Oh god, there's another bat.'" --The Stanford Daily