Comments on: It Was a Lovely Day

By: Hope

Hope — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 01:37:30 +0000

My current public library is the first I’ve known to offer ILL service. A couple other NC libraries do it, but I think they might charge for it.

By: cyn

cyn — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 23:40:24 +0000

I was the Queen of Interlibrary Loans when using other library systems, but this county makes it damned near impossible to place them. I interact with the library almost entirely online, since I’m essentially homebound, and Sam picks up and returns books for me. They won’t set up a way to do the requests without going to the branch and painfully spelling out each field of the request slip to a clerk. (I can’t believe those people are librarians. I refuse to consider it.) You can’t request anything less than a year old (the better library has a 6-month age limit), and the few requests I’ve submitted have just disappeared into the ether. When I try to follow them up, I’m told they don’t track them. I really think they throw them away.

There is a library system that most of the state’s libraries are part of, PINES, and it’s pretty darned good. None of the major metro Atlanta county systems participate, though. They apparently see it as subsidizing smaller systems, even when their own sucks rocks.

We were closer to a PINES branch than to anything else in our prior home, out in the exurbs, so I used them a lot. They expected most things to be done online, since their patrons are all over the state. It was wonderful!

I’m not TOO far from that PINES branch when I go see the pain doctor each month, but since Sam is already taking time off work to drive me there, I feel guilty about asking him to make a library stop, too.

By: je reviens

je reviens — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 23:11:12 +0000

Happy Birthday!

You can’t do interlibrary loan thru your local library? I get a lot of good stuff that way.

By: cyn

cyn — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 02:05:39 +0000

Precious, at first I thought you were talking about Wackyville, then I remembered where you now!

Thanks, Shirlee & Hope!

Since I was tiny, I’ve dreamed about living close enough to a good library to walk to it. We’re close enough for Sam or Katie to walk to a branch now, but it isn’t a good one. If we don’t move to where we want next year, maybe I’ll reconsider life in the ‘burbs with better libraries.

By: Precious

Precious — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 01:37:19 +0000

Not only do we have awesome libraries, but ours right down the road from our house is only a year old and has tons and tons and tons of great audiobooks. They also carry all the manga Spidey could ever want to read, have an awesome reading room with stuffed animals for Boo, and every computer game a kid could want. We loves it.