The library hates me and breaks my heart. They are constructing some new system to catalogue the books and keep track of what patrons have what books out which THEY SAY is going to be much better and everyone will rejoice in it once they have finished setting it up TWO WEEKS FROM NOW. But I have my doubts because the last several new things that they have come up with have made me unhappy, to wit:
1. Completely getting rid of the computers where you didn't have to log in, you could just check really quickly to see if a book was in the library. Now you have to log in to the computers and get on the internet and use the online catalogue. It takes ages and I hate it. And the computers are constantly breaking which they hardly ever used to do. Or, well, maybe they did, but I liked them a lot better and have chosen to forget any negative qualities they may have possessed.
2. Bringing out these new soulless white cards. My card is blue, and I have had it for eight years, and I am not prepared to part with it for some allegedly stronger but definitely not as good white card.. Because when I first got a grown-up blue card, I kept losing it, and finally I got this one, and I was like, OKAY. THIS IS IT. I like this number and I am not ever ever ever going to lose this card, and I never did.
3. The new evil system whereby little children can only check out children's books on their card, so if they want an adult book or even a YA book, their parents have to check it out for them. This is hateful evilness and makes people's lives more trying. I can only imagine how furious I would have been if this rule had been in effect when I was small.
So I am not confident that the new library system will be better. Meanwhile I have no idea when my books are due. I check books out all the time, and I keep track of their due dates by looking online. You can't renew books using just your library card. You have to actually know which books are due when, and have them with you when you try to renew them. This sucks because my goal is to accrue less than $15 of fines on this go-round of my library card; I just renewed the card, and that lasts for three years, so I am trying to get very few fines in three years. And I know this is going to mess everything up. TOTALLY UNCOOL.
You know what would make me feel better? Football! How many more days is it until Saturday? I am nervous for the Florida game, but I am taking it as a good omen that it's happening on Ada Leverson's birthday. I shall pray that she intercedes for us - I mean what are the odds that there are any Florida fans who like her as much as I do?
3 comments:
I was yawning over all these minor issues until I got to the part about kids not being able to check out adult books. And not even YA books???? How does that make sense? One's reach should always exceed one's grasp! HOW WILL CHILDREN EVER LEARN TO READ REAL BOOKS???
You forgot the horrible new library catalog, that sucks while the old blue screen one works perfectly, but now you have to find the few computers left that have it.
And, am I remembering wrong about this? I remember in my head that the computer log-in thing happened after Katrina, and we'd heard a librarian complaining about all the evacuees on the computers?
Well, the library's defense is that the parents can get the books for the kids. They say they instituted this policy so that parents would stop checking out zillions of books and running up fines on their kids' cards, and then never paying them, and the kids can't use the cards. WHATEVER.
You know, Anna banana, that does ring a bell (though the fault of the individual librarian acting a fool, not the library as a whole) - and I did not forget the new library catalogue, that was my #1 gripe. I appreciate the existence of the online catalogue when I am not in the library, but when I am in the library, the blue screen one is now hard to get to. Grrrr.
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