Day 1 (Friday): After going to a local public library for “intro to” family history research guides (and being unimpressed) I go to my own library. We’re one of the top 10 gene libraries in the country and so I knew I’d find what I need here even though I’d never been in the gene stacks before. I ask for the circulating collection (books you can take home) and the librarian directs me to some shelves and helps me pick out a few titles. Great. I go to check them out and watch uneasily as the librarian behind the counter has to do circ system voodoo to check them out to me: THEY’RE ACTUALLY NON-CIRCULATING, meaning, you can’t check them out after all. Out loud she tells the system not to be silly, I need these for my job, and she creates a due date. Is she subtely asking if I need them for my job? Or does she really think I need them for my job? even though I don’t work in the genealogy collection. I make jokes to distract her from this dangerous line of consideration.
Next I take the books to Panera where I sit for two hours and read. I splurtz a little Diet Pepsi on one of the books and dry it with my sleeve. I feel guilty. I consider that it is a 2008 mass-produced trade paperback and not actually valuable. That doesn’t really help.
The books are so useful I finish one by Sunday afternoon and another by Monday night. These books are great. I decide I shall return both of them promptly. I take them to work with me on Tuesday. I actually work one building over from the library itself right now so I see if anyone is going over to the library who could drop them off for me. No one is. The thought of walking them over myself in the snow isn’t actually all that appealing. My good intentions are for naught, the books sit on my desk for two days. On Wednesday night I know that the next day I’ll be dropping Hubby off at the library and he can return them for me. Perfect! I take the books back home.
On Thursday morning I tell hubby I have two non-circulating books checked out, can he run them upstairs today? He says yes. An hour later I repeat that I have two non-circulating books checked out, can he return them? He says yes, a little irritably. Hubby, I married you and I love you, but I don’t trust you to return books on time any more than I trust me to return books on time. Returning books on time is not the forte of many librarians. What does that mean for you? It means return your books on time or we’re going to fine you and eventually revoke your borrowing privileges.
God, I hope the head of public services doesn’t see him with those. No one granted me a dispensation to check out these books, it was all a big misunderstanding on the part of the librarian behind the circ desk, and I actually don’t know her very well. Now I have lead her into a life of rule breaking – and in libraries we are VERY SERIOUS about our rules. I might lose microfilm privileges. This must be handled very delicately.
I consider calling Hubby and asking him for a third time to return the books, this time with instructions to do it sneakily. I don’t. He does not find jimmying a circulation system so you can take a book to Panera to be a high crime and would not find the interruption amusing. I hope nobody needs that Family Tree Maker manual today.
Plum Librarian LLC 