2332 Life's little imperfections

Most of the time being me is just wonderful; today it wasn't so great. Libraries. Sigh. I know too much.

I went to the public library to return some material and check out additional items. Like a Buck (I've got a tiger by the tail) Owens CD. While browsing the Friends' Book Sale, I noticed a current journal, barcoded, stamped and labeled, lying on a "for sale" book truck. I took it to the gentleman volunteer and told him someone had accidentally placed a library magazine on the "for sale" cart. "No," he said. "It IS for sale--I found it and took it over to Circulation and they checked it." He was hard of hearing, so I didn't try to argue with him, but I was pretty sure the current issue of American Scholar wouldn't have been put up for sale for $.25. He was probably told it wasn't checked out to anyone. So I urged him to go ask someone else. I should have just picked it up and taken it to the periodical room myself. Grumble, mumble.

Then I was browsing the new book shelves. A young woman was reshelving recently returned books from a cart. I don't know if she was a volunteer or paid staff. I hope we aren't paying her to do such a bad job. I don't think she understands decimals. She'd pause a moment and if she didn't see a spot, she just put the volume at the end of the shelf. I followed her discreetly for a bit, reshelving as I went, but then moved on over to another area, because I think she noticed me.

In the other area I saw a large, oversize book with a sticker on the front stating that it's value was $50.00 and that's what I'd be charged if I lost it. I opened it up and saw it was just photos. Something about saving the planet or we're going to hell in a handbasket with global warming, etc. Anyway, it was only photos. If there was text, I missed it. Definitely coffee table stuff. The reason I mention this is that recently my request was denied for a rather large volume, Wealth of ideas, published by the Hoover Institute Museum and Archives showing a portion of its valuable collection of the history of the 20th century. . .

"The subject matter is epic in scale, covering the great wars, revolutions, political and intellectual movements, and personalities of the twentieth century. The author, Bertrand Patenaude, has assembled an impressive cast of characters, including many of the most influential figures of the age, among them Woodrow Wilson and Leon Trotsky, Friedrich von Hayek and Henry Ford, Karl R. Popper and Joseph Goebbels, Chiang Kai-shek and Boris Pasternak, and Bertrand Russell and John Maynard Keynes. The book contains nearly 300 illustrations, including political posters, photographs, film stills, original artwork, typed and holograph public and private manuscripts, letters, and diaries."

When I got home I checked this title on-line at Ohio State, but it was on order and I couldn't place a save. I was told to check OhioLINK, and there was only one other non-circulating copy in the whole state. So apparently it doesn't fit university or college guidelines either. Interesting.

Something drew my eye to the Cartoon library so I stopped to look at the 2007 Cartoon Festival page, and found a bad link to the catalog, so I stopped what I was doing to send an e-mail to the staff supplying the URL, because from experience I know that if you report a bad link, webmasters can't find it and you end up in a convoluted e-mail back-and-forth.

I feel like I put in a day's work. I know too much.