Y’all must have some pretty impressive libraries. The public libraries here are pathetic. I don’t know about university ones. I buy books because they are not available in the libraries here. I buy mostly on-line because the books I want are not sold locally.
Pick a topic, and you may find ONE book on it at the public library here. If that book is actually a worthwhile volume, it was stolen long ago and never replaced. The index still counts the volume, so the librarians still insist the topic is covered. I don’t know which is more pathetic, the libraries or the librarians who stand jealous guard over them.
Well the CLA is not the ALA, but maybe your community doesn’t support libraries sufficently. Plus theft from public libraries is in the billions, library budgets have a difficult time overcoming that type of loss.
I love libraries! When I started painting, I couldn’t afford a class and didn’t know which books to buy, so I started checking out every book on watercolor the local branch library had. Went through every one of them. Now I live in Salt Lake City itself and have a huge library to browse through. I go about once a month and load up with art books, biographies, history.
A month or so ago I found a book on Ada Blackjack, the true story (with photos) of an Inuit woman who was the sole survivor of a small group of people who went to live on an island north of Alaska for a year in the early 1920s. I was amazed I’d never heard of this story–it really should be a movie. Anyway, I’d have never found it if I hadn’t just been browsing around in the library.
I have tried to use the libraries in the past.
Walked down to the closest one and they said I had to go to one that covered my neighborhood because they wouldn’t allow me to sign up then and there. Eventually was able to drive to it and received a temporary card and I was told in a week I could drive to the down town lib and pick up my card within a limited time window. Mean while I found that they couldn’t figure out how to do a book loan with the Diet of Japan.
I go to the library at least once a week. We have a county wide system so 1 card gets you in all of them. Good PCs, CDs,Dvds and books. I often have them request hard to find books sent from other libraries from all over the country.
I used to have problems with the libraries here too. I live in sort of a limbo area. The library closest to me doesn’t have a very good selection but I couldn’t get a card at the Portage or Kalamazoo libraries.
A couple of years ago my oldest daughter started working at the Portage library and made sure I got a card. Because I have a Portage card I was also able to get a Kalamazoo card. Kalamazoo has a very good library.
In fact I just checked out The Road and Blood Meridian.
It’s saved me tons of money on books.
You should call the director’s office, sounds like somebody was not wanting to do their job, I can’t believe that is the actual policy of the Hennepin County Libraries, heck you can probably get it on-line.
That’s a shame, I.D.10-t. I’m a huge fan of our public library system. I can request, online, any item from anywhere in the state and have it delivered to my local library, usually within days. They reply via email to let me know when it has arrived and hold it for me till I get there. It’s a wonderful service!
I used to chat with a young fellow at my job who’s nose was constantly in a book and I’d always want to know what he was reading. However, he’d inevitably ask me the same question, to which I had no reply. Eventually, he got bored and probably thought I was an idiot.
He did, however, lend me “Clockwork Orange”, which I thoroughly enjoyed and I was amazed how much fun it was to read. The movie he lent me as well, but it didn’t live up the the book. And Kubrick . . . Yikes!
And while I think of myself as an intelligent person, I don’t like to curl up on the sofa and read. I don’t mind reading to learn something but I can’t get into fiction. I don’t think I was this way as a kid . . . I remember sitting in the gym on a non-PE class and reading while the kids chatted loudly. The din was incredible. I used to be able to block it out all that external noise. Now I can’t even read with music on.
Reading takes a certain amount of concentration and most of that goes into my daily life, so I have little left over for reading. Modern fiction is ghastly . . . I remember getting a discarded paperback by Patricia Cornwell. Interesting at first, but then she’s explaining the details of a meal and the lives of the character and getting so off the track and stalling the story. All to fill a book and say, oh what a clever writer I am!
I haven’t even finished the Harry Potter series . . . I find I get annoyed with the constant explanations of basic terms she’s been using since the first novel.
Maybe Clockwork Orange is a challenge to understand . . . which makes at all the more interesting to figure out.
No, it is just my experiences with local public libraries. I would like to be able to go into a library and find an assortment of books on the topic I’m interested in. I get more choice in a bookstore, and an even better idea of what’s available from amazon.com. Our libraries here seem to be set up to say that they exist, rather than to actually serve a purpose.
I don’t go to the library much because most books wind up in my husband’s used book store faster than the library gets them.
You have to show proof that you live in the city to get a city library card. I think this is because it’s funded by tax dollars and they don’t want people who aren’t paying city taxes to use their facilities.
The downtown library doesn’t have a great selection, but it has a great view of the Spokane Falls.
I am trying to read John LeCarre’s ‘Russia House’ and I’m just not getting into it. A while back I also started ‘Single and Single’ and ended up puttiinig it down. I’ve read LeCarre before so what is it with those books?
I also just finished ‘Water for Elephants’ which is a good read.
Speaking of that, anyone on Goodreads.com? You can be my friend. I’m fjsharpjr(at)gmail.com
Our libraries here in NE Ohio are pretty good. Plus I live at the intersection of three counties and I can get cards for each, search them online, and pick up ordered books no more than 20 minutes away in any direction. Also, Ohio has a statewide library search system and participating libraries can borrow book from anywhere.
Disclaimer: I am on the local Library Trust, a non profit org that oversees our town’s library.
I much prefer reading a library book over a book from B&N or Borders. The recycler in me feels good about not consuming unnecessarily, and the community lover in me feels connected to everyone else who has read that very book. I like the feel of pages that have been turned many times.
But I too HATE the telephone book. The only thing that happens with telephone books here is that they have to get schlepped out to recycling–they are otherwise not touched. We google everything and are never disappointed.
All I can say about Walden’s forthcoming book is that if it’s like his earlier ones, we are all in for a treat. I’d be hard pressed to pick a favorite, but I suppose Raiders of the Lost Ocarina would have to be way up there, if for no other reason than his gentle fun-poking at some of the more prominent C&F personalities (“no resemblance to any person living or dead” --yeah, right, Walden!).
I go about once a week and grab two or three fictions..gets me through the night shift with ease and comfort.
Last week I was busy and forgot to go to the Library so I broke out my copy of Annie Proulxs "The Shipping News"again. Must have been my fourth time through it. The last paragraph just kills me like both barrels of a sawn-off shotgun to the heart..no good in grabbing a copy and turning to the end..ye gotta start at the start and take the journey through it all.
OK, they’re all booked-up.