Hobbes: No luck?
Calvin: Those librarians are a sharp bunch.
I finally went to get a library card the other day. Five bucks! I've been spoiled! My library cards in my home town have always been free and they don't charge you late charges either. But here it's $.20 a day per item. Can you believe that? Crazy! Ah well, I got about ten books out and I'll be reading them for awhile. Possibly longer than the three week date I'm allowed to have them out. They're pretty eclectic too. The librarian even commented on my selection. So I complimented him on the moving desk he had. He was really tall and the librarian who was just going off shift was really short so there was a significant height difference and he pushed a button and the counter started to move up! Wow! Why don't they make kitchen counters like that? Or everything, really. Where are the moving sidewalks I was promised, people! But I digress, as I am wont to do. He was probably only nice to me because he doesn't know me yet.
Calvin: Omigosh! This library book was due two days ago! What will they do? Are they going to interrogate me and beat me up?! Are they going to break my knees?? Will I have to sign some confession???
Calvin's Mom:They'll fine you ten cents. Now go return it.
Calvin: The way some of those librarians look at you, I naturally assumed the consequences would be more dire.
Oh, they are, my friend. They are.
I'm really bad with returning things on time. Once, I had a collection agency after me for overdue books. Seriously. I don't even think it was my fault. I left a pile of books laying under my bed and then went on a two week trip to Toronto. And when I came back, my idiot-stick roommates had returned the stack to the wrong library branch. And instead of returning the books to the right library or even, say, phoning me to let me know, or even phoning the original, righteous library, they just kept the stack of books there while it slowly bled my library credit dry. What tha f?
So I tried to explain myself both to the original library and the credit agency they sicced on my ass, but to no avail. I ended up having to pay a fine of over $100. Now, I like Bridget Jones's Diary as much as the next reasonably intelligent reader who sometimes delves into fluffy romances while drinking a diet coke and taking a bubble-bath, but I don't $100 like it, if you get me, and I think you do.
So I dragged that mother out like it wasn't no thang. And it wasn't. I slept easy and didn't give it much thought cuz after all, they got their books back. It's not like I was holding them and declining to pay. No sir. I gave them back and declined to pay. So yeah. I lived my life as normally as a girl with a heaping library debt on her head could. Until they contacted my bank and threatened to put a lien on my Student Loans. Whoa! Back off Joe Bookman! So I somehow managed to scrape together the green to get them to leave me alone. Oh, and did I mention how I totally did it again at my University library and almost didn't graduate because I had an $80 library charge?
Buffy: Have you ever run a store before?
Giles: I was a librarian for years. This is exactly the same, except people pay for the things they don't return.
Now, reading the above, you might think that I had some sort of grudge against libraries and was, perhaps, doing all this on purpose. You might think that I was very, very, very bitter and that I hated libraries and their late charges with all my being, because, Jesus Jumping Christ on a pogo-stick! Shouldn't there be a statute of limitations on library fines? After all, it's not like they could be renting those books out to other patrons willing to pay more. Ya know? YA KNOW?
Well, you'd be wrong.
I LOVE libraries.
Once, I won third place in an online library haiku contest (for which I never received the third place prize of Bret Easton Ellis' Glamorama, but that's alright.) Seeing my haiku there in all its glory for everybody to read was fan-damn-tastic. I think it went something like this:
I wander the stacks
as beige boxes click and hoot
somewhere, Giles weeps
Putting aside the fact that I am a complete and total nerd and turned a simple library haiku into a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference, you can see that I love libraries. Love the smell of em, love the silence of em, love the austereness of em.
Sometimes, I feel like going into the library and standing right in the middle and stretching my arms out and trying to soak up all the information within those walls. It seems immense. It seems impossible. It seems like you could never read them all, but sometimes I think that somebody must have at some point in time.
The walls of books around him, dense with the past, formed a kind of insulation against the present world of disasters. �Ross MacDonald
Libraries are like churches to me: places for spiritual solace, intellectual nurturing, and the occasional silent epiphany.
Actually, when I really think about it, going to the library is a LOT like going to church. I usually go every Sunday. I usually pay my tithe in the form of a library fine or if I've been good and have no fine, a donation (I'm not completely bad. Some parts are missing.) When I am finished browsing, I'll take my pile of books and head to the altar where the librarian will perform a benediction of sorts, baptising each book with a laser pen. She will hand me a wafer of paper with dates written on it. Food for thought.
And when I come away, I feel better. About myself, about the world around me, about the fact that they just let me take out 20 books and learn about a whole heap of cool things pretty much for free. If there is a God, I'm pretty sure he digs the whole library scene, know what I mean? Cuz Libraries are like the best parts of the world where at least some of the virtues we're taught to value (sharing, learning, being polite and quiet) are put into practice daily.
I like the way libraries smell just as I like the way churches smell. You go in, you take a breath, you feel like you're somewhere special. I mean, I'm not religious really, but I still like to hoof it down to St. Patrick's every once in awhile and take in a mass. I admire the ritual, the wood, the tradition and the smells. And when I enter a library, I admire the ritual, the stacks, the knowledge lining the walls, and the smells there too.
Libraries smell like paper and silence and sunlight seeping in through big, arched windows. I wander through stacks aimlessly, pulling books out at random. Today, I'm going to Chile. And later tonight, I'll read about a boy who was possessed right before going to bed and my imagination will keep me up and wondering at every click and drip and bump in the night. But right now, I'm trailing my fingers over the spines of books, marvelling at the seemless perfection of the Dewey Decimal system.
Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me,
From mine own library with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom.
�Shakespeare, The Tempest
Sometimes, I buy books. And then I feel guilty. Because it's like I'm cheating on a particularly kind, patient, smart and handsome lover. Chapters and Barnes and Nobles and all the rest. They're dark mistresses of the night who tempt me away from my library with their cappucino bars and their cushy chairs. You can practically see Librarians foaming at the mouth when they walk by one. "Why didn't WE think of cushy chairs and expensive coffee drinks!" They're fuming to themselves.
Whoever thought up libraries had to have been a smart, intelligent person. And I like to believe that most librarians are smart, intelligent persons. I mean, look at all the cool librarians we think up! Marion the Librarian. Okay, not so much cool, but she did really know how to belt out a show tune. And Cat Woman was a librarian! I bet you didn't know that. Oh, and Party Girl! Parker Posey as cool librarian. Can't beat that. Except for Giles. Giles is the coolest. In an edearingly nerdy sort of way.
I have a friend who was a librarian. One of the smartest people I know. She even worked in the Legislative library. Like a real library with less fun books and more serious books and public records and what-all. In fact, I have reason to believe that she might be reading this right now. (Hi Tiff! Having fun in Japan? With the earthquakes and the craziness and the mmmhhuuuy?)
There's a part of me that really digs the idea of being a librarian. Mostly because it'd be quiet and there'd never be a shortage of books and I'd have first crack at them and books are usually much nicer than people.
Buffy: �The school talent show. How ever did you finagle such a primo assignment?
Giles: �Our new F�hrer, Mr. Snyder.
Willow: �I think they call 'em 'principals' now.
Giles: �Mm. He thought it would behoove me to have more contact with the students. I did try to explain that my vocational choice of librarian was a deliberate attempt to (draws a breath) minimize said contact, but,uh, he would have none of it.
But I don't know if I could be a librarian. My reputation as one who does not return books is known far and wide, I think. I'm sure there's a file card on me. Like at the supermarket where, next to the cash register is a sign that's all "Do not accept cheques from this person." Except, at the library, it would be like "She never returns things on time!" Oh, you think librarians don't talk? I bet they do. I bet they whisper. I bet they'd fink me out to the library police in a heartbeat. No such thing? Yeah, well. Tell that to Jerry Seinfeld.
"Let me tell you something, funny boy... You know that little stamp? The one that says New York Public Library? Well, that may not mean anything to you, but that means a lot to me. One whole helluva lot. Sure, go ahead, laugh if you want to. I've seen your type before - flashy, making the scene, flaunting convention. Yeah, I know what you're thinking... Why's this guy making such a big stink about old library books? Let me give you a hint, junior. Maybe we can live without libraries, people like you and me....Maybe. Sure, we're too old to change the world. What about that kid, sitting down, opening a book right now in a branch of the local library and finding pictures of pee-pees and wee-wees in The Cat in the Hat and The Five Chinese Brothers. Doesn't he deserve better? Look, if you think this is about overdue fines and missing books, you'd better think again. This is about that kid's right to read a book without getting his mind warped. Or maybe that turns you on, Seinfeld... Maybe that's how you get your kicks... You and your good time buddies... I've got a flash for you, joy boy. Partytime is over."
�Bookman. Joe Bookman.
Tunes: Junior Wells
Tube: CSI season 1 DVDs
Pages: Good Omens by Neil Gaimen and Terry Pratchett.
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