Vacation Loan Return Day

[sebastienne]

Dear Undergraduates:

Just stop. Stop with your flip-flops and your pyjama bottoms and your 3-hour "natural" make-up jobs. Stop with your belief that the rules just don't apply to you. Stop answering your phones at the issue desk. Stop leaving banana skins on the tables. Stop unloading your forty vacation books halfway down the desk, watching me carry pile after pile up to the computer to be checked in, and keep piling them there while you watch me carrying. You have the suitcase on wheels; not me. This just makes it all take twice as long, which is irritating for you, irritating for me, and irritating for the queue of people building up behind you.


Dear Co-worker:

By all means talk to your friends when they come into the library - it's fine, I do it too. But you have been talking to her for forty minutes. Yes, you are helping readers, if they interrupt your conversation to come and ask for help; but, more often, they are queuing up in front of me. You see this queue? It's your cue to say "who's next please?" or "can I help you?". Not to chat obliviously. Really.


Thank the gods that I am disappearing to London for the next couple of days. Overworked parents, post-surgery-infected sister, career-relevant visit to the National Autistic Society Information Centre.. it will be like a pit full of candyfloss and lesbians compared to this morning.


ETA: Here, have some cool shiny interesting news. What do you think? Brilliant innovation, the future of libraries, or a sad indictment of the state of community in the 21st century?

Comments

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

Ooooh yes. All sounds familiar. I don't get why they pile the books up at the far end of the desk either.

[opportunemoment.livejournal.com]

It's fascinating. And a bit scary. I don't know if I could do either side of that conversation. As a book I'd probably be defensive and/or easily upset, and as a reader I'd probably just apologise for about ten minutes straight. Either way, hugely awkward. But as an idea, it seems really sweet...

(I don't know quite what the first commenter is on about. If people talked to strangers on the street in the good old days, that was probably partly because they expected to be more or less like them. This is a guess, but I don't think I'm necessarily wrong.)

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

It makes me think of the Monty Python "conversation menu" sketch...

[opportunemoment.livejournal.com]

Ha! Yes, that too...

[deepbluemermaid.livejournal.com]

Heh, that scene is so wonderfully awkward. "Do all philosophers have an S in their name?"

[deathbyshinies.livejournal.com]

Wow. I can't express how much I like the Living Library idea; so much so that I'm almost tempted to get in contact with the person who organises it.

Also: *claps both hands over mouth so can't say 'I told you so' about the annoyness of (some) readers!!!*

Hang in there, and enjoy the London times!

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

Can we go to the next one?

[deathbyshinies.livejournal.com]

Why, hell yes.

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

The Information Store is actually surprisingly cool. It was the nearest library to my last work placement, so I was in there a couple of times; thought it was going to be hideous, but it felt incredibly positive. It didn't trigger a lot of my library-fear.

Whatcha doing with the National Autistic Society, huh?

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

*Idea Store

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

Just going to have a nosey round their library. I figured I may as well attempt to walk the walk of ending up in A Library Wot Does Good.

[sugar-and-space.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, human books... pretty cool idea, imho. Now, if they did something like that, but took it on tour, i think it'd be a lot more use - schools, retirement homes, that sorta thing?

[deathbyshinies.livejournal.com]

schools, retirement homes, that sorta thing?

IAWTC. Wonder how many parents you'd get Up In Arms, though.

[glamwhorebunni.livejournal.com]

Interesting concept, that living books thing. Dunno what I'd call up, or catalogue myself under. But interesting!

[glamwhorebunni.livejournal.com]

Also, surprised it wasn't more preaching-to-the-converted. Do homophobic people really walk into a library and think "oh, excellent, a chance to talk to a fag for half an hour"?

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe not the hardliners who are totally appalled by the presence of queers and convinced we're all going to hell...but it seems a pretty good opportunity for those who would like to be more tolerant but are still uncomfortable/ignorant about queers due to lack of exposure or whatnot.

[andustar.livejournal.com]

Think of all the people who protest 'I don't think I've ever met a gay person'.

[frightful-elk.livejournal.com]

Wow, that is a weird idea, but it sounds brilliant! I'm going to go along to the next one it sounds like fun!