Real webs in a real library shut down the stacks.

You just knew they were in there, didn’t you? The back of the library stacks always were places of mystery and danger. They were also good places to make out, catch a nap or hide out from that bonehead from Econ class bugging you for your notes. Thanks to the remoteness of the shelves, they also are ideal habitats for creatures who also want to stay out of other people’s way, for reasons of their own.

Include in that last category of stacks dwellers the European recluse spider.

Turns out the librarians at the undergrad library at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor discovered a couple of the little buggers lurking there and totally freaked out – they shut the doors for two days depriving the Wolverines not only the consolations of post-modern lit crit and the comforts of study carrells ringed with coffee stains, but robbed them of the chance to risk life and limb braving arachnid neurotoxins. The New York Times spins out the details.

True, the spiders are called “recluses” for a reason. They want nothing to do with the likes of us, or so the entymologists want us to believe. As every parent has told every child cowering in fear when coming across a creepy-crawly, “They are more afraid of you than you are of them.”

Sure. Even dim five-year olds know the truth. You’re lying to me now, Pops.

The experts assure us that these guys only bite in self-defense. They don’t attack because they are out to avenge themselves on the human race on behalf of their insectoid brethren. Even the library bosses agreed that shutting the doors over a couple of hairy-looking little beasts just trying to live a peaceful life in the corner of the bound volumes was overkill.

Still, you can’t blame them. The last thing library managers need in these days of cutbacks and competition from online services and janky wifi is another reason for patrons to stay out of the real library. Hairy, fanged spiders harassing the undergrads is one of them.

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