Clareified

Where does the good go

It’s fundamental

Around the time I declared myself the Rosa Parks of e-books, @metsfan tweeted about borrowing e-books from his library in California. Being the unabashedly lazy woman that I am, I thought, hmm, on the one hand, I could do something about the outrageous prices of buying books for my Kindle; on the other, I could find a library and download all the free books I’d like.

I set off to East Coco Beach’s branch because I was in the area doing some errand or another for Joyce Summers. Right away, I knew this wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d hope.

“Hi. I was wondering if I could borrow books for my Kindle?”

“Your what?”

Sigh.

I held up my phone. “Um… electronic books… like downloaded?”

Stare.

“Is there anyone here who might know?”

“HEY LISA! THIS LADY WANTS TO DOWNLOAD SOMETHING FOR HER PHONE.”

I flinched at his bellowing. This was, after all, a LIBRARY.

Lisa saunters over, smiles and asks how she can help me.

I explain my request. She pursed her lips and said “I think so, but I’ve never done it. Hold on.”

She makes a call and after a series of uh huh and okays, she hung up and said. “Okay, so all you have to do is log on to our website and click on downloadable materials. Then you should find what you need…”

A line was forming under the arrow labeled check out.

…excuse me, I have to take care of these kids. Hope that helps.”

I turned to go and then realized I still needed two pieces of information.

I went back to the bellower.

“What is you website address?”

“OF THE LIBRARY?”

Shhhhhh.

“yes,” I whispered, hoping to set an example for him to follow.

“70 Linden Boulve…”

Sigh.

“No. Online… a website… probably something like nypl.org or library.edu?”

S-MOTHERFUCKING-IGH. How does this dude work in a library??!?!?!?!?!?!

“I don’t know.”

I glanced longingly at Lisa, who was scanning books.

“Do you have a pamphlet or something back there, they usually put that on the back.”

He fished around and handed me a few — I found it.

“Okay, can you tell me what my library card number is?” I slid my driver’s license across the counter.

“You need a library card?” This was something he knew how to do. His facial muscles relaxed and he stopped screaming.

“No. I already have one, I just don’t know where it is and I need the number to log-on to…I just need the number.”

“Well, if you’ve lost your card, it will be two dollars to replace it.”

O_O

“I don’t need a card, I just need the number. You can look it up using my name… I will write it down. That’s it.”

Two dollars MY ASS. Suddenly, I’m wondering if suing Amazon for collusion seemed like it might actually be an easier path…

He did as I asked, I jotted down my number and went to my mother’s house.

After that it was a pretty smooth process.

The Brooklyn public library lets you check out up to 15 books at a time. I went a little book crazy my first time out and downloaded about nine. Of course, you only get 14 days to read them (or listen to them, in the case of the audiobooks I got) so my days and nights were consumed with digesting tales of battered women and space travel and Nazis and stupid privileged white people and World War I and more battered women (note to self, don’t get anymore book recommendations from Elana, her protaganists all end up locked in a trunk.)

I toyed with doing a some book reviews, but um…I still have like 6 books to finish in the next two days. Sorry.

Gotta run. Er… read.

7 Responses to “It’s fundamental”

  1. PirateLawyer Says:

    My mother (not that she’s read this) would like to object to this justified vilification of library staff. Of course, she probably shares your distaste for lazy circulation staffers since she’s a high-falutin’ librarian who works in special collections and archives. 😉

  2. Pdov Says:

    E-books are usually easier to renew.

  3. Pdov Says:

    I also got greedy when I figured out how to download books from the library. Returned a bunch of them, when I realized what I have done.

  4. Dawn Summers Says:

    You, ma’am, are a QUITTER! *Sarah palin stance*

  5. Gib Says:

    My understanding is you have a book about a woman who gets locked in a trunk by a team of Nazi aliens, but escapes and fights them off with the help of an overprivileged white WWI vet.

    I must read this book.

  6. Dawn Summers Says:

    DIBS!

  7. Pdov Says:

    Gib where is Dr. Who in all of this? I demand a tie in!

Leave a Reply