Library Saga: News Flash!

I found my library card! Yay! It wasn’t in the wallet (which, as careful followers of this odyssey will know, is no longer in my possession). Apparently, at some point before the wallet went missing, I’d taken it out of my wallet and placed it on my dresser under some magazines. Wasn’t that a clever place to put it?

Excited about my find, I went back to the library this afternoon. (If you’re just tuning into this Very Exciting Adventure, all you need to know is that I threw a tantrum at the feet of the librarians at the NYPL Mulberry branch the other day because their selection was lousy and they wouldn’t let me check out a book because I didn’t have my card). This time I went to the Mid-Manhattan Branch. This is the branch I usually go to, and, in the future, it’s the only one I’ll go to. Was it a perfect experience? No. Of the four books I was looking for, all were marked as “available” but only two were actually on the shelves. But, hey, 50 percent is pretty good in my book. They also had many many many Spanish text books.

But here is the really exciting part: I met a really nice librarian!

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Regarding Fucking the Library

One shouldn’t blog when angry, so I’d like to apologize for the ranting I did in the Fuck the Library post I wrote the other day. However, as my mom likes to say, “there’s always good that comes out of bad,” and in this case, the good was in the response from readers. Thanks to the interesting emails many of you sent, and to the handful of commenters. Thanks especially to the commenter who suggested I should research my next “shelf-filler” book at Scores and ask a stripper there for a “reference interview.” Considering my luck at the library last week, I have a feeling that might prove just as useful as going to the actual library—but it might be more fun! 

As I said in the post, I’m pro-library. I hope there will always be libraries. But the response to my post has made me think about the way that libraries have changed in my lifetime, and how they might continue to change. 

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Fuck the Library

I am a woman of modest means. Also: I like books. This is why I found myself at the library on this pretty afternoon.

Specifically, I was at the New York Public Library branch on Mulberry Street in Manhattan. All around me today, people are waving their shiny new iPads. I’ve been on the fence about e-readers, but I can see the appeal of reading a book on one of these things.  My husband only asked me four times today what books he can download for me on his new device. Still, in the name of simplicity and thrift, I decided I wasn’t going that route. As a defender of things obsolete, I feel it’s my duty to keep the library light lit. Today, however, may have been my last visit. But this isn’t because of the iPad: It’s because of people.

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