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I am trying to save for a down payment, pay off student loans, and save up for a wedding right now, all of which is to say that I basically have zero disposable income right now and won't for a couple of years. Since at least college I have had a weird fascination with buying my books instead of using the library. In college, this was because I thought that they made nice trophies so that people would be duly impressed [Eds. note: they weren't] and chicks would give me blowies because I read a long of overlong postmodern fiction [Eds. note: They didn't - nor should they have.] After that I never really questioned it but I just kept buying my books. In the past year I've been trying to squeeze all the fat I can out of the budget. I cut cable, which means I'm reading a lot more, and eventually I finally figured out it was time to get a library card. Now I go about once a week. It is amazing that our society has in every city a building where you can just go have whatever you'd like to read for free. If my local branch doesn't have what I like, some dude will drive it there from another library for free. I can get Kindle books, etc. They even have a bizarrely expansive collection of loving terrible movies on Blu-Ray. The point of all this, to the extent I have one, is that libraries are pretty amazing and we should all use them.
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Jan 6, 2016 05:08
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Thanks, libraries.
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Jan 7, 2016 00:04
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You didn't already have a library card? Don't forget libraries can be great for music and movies too. One of my local branches has 2 dozen Criterion collection films.
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Jan 7, 2016 00:48
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I think libraries are great in general, but my local one is a bit terrible. It has incredibly arcane opening hours (some days it is only open for 3 hours in the afternoon, but other days it is only open for 3 hours in the morning) and charges €6 per year for membership. It has a pretty small collection and charges for interlibrary loans, so I don't really bother. It mainly seems to be used as a space for community groups, which is nice. Other libraries in the area are better, though, and they are a great benefit to the community overall.
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Jan 7, 2016 11:45
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The library? You mean the Makerspace for kids to explore coding and STEM skills?
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Jan 7, 2016 12:52
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FactsAreUseless posted:The library? You mean the Makerspace for kids to explore coding and STEM skills? That's a weird way to say "place where kids take up every computer to play Runescape and Adventure Quest"
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Jan 7, 2016 12:54
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More like "place where teenage girls with parent issues take up every computer to read fanfiction and roleplay on livejournal"
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Jan 7, 2016 17:53
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More like "place where old people come to ask the staff if we know the password to their email account".
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Jan 9, 2016 02:03
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lol if you don't use your library to look at porn and masturbate
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Jan 9, 2016 19:26
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As someone who worked for 5 years as a library aide at a library 3 blocks from the beach in San Diego, I can say comfortably that libraries exist down here largely for the homeless. The sheer number of people I caught masturbating is stunning, I constantly had to chase people off of our roof until eventually we just began throwing fish on the roof to bring in enough seagulls/smell to just block it off. I learned that crabs are easily visible on bloody tampons and that Jackie Kennedy was for sure in on the assassination of JFK. I have had cum thrown at me and I've had several people try and bite me. I also read some incredible books and met some fascinating people so I can comfortably say libraries are a crap-shoot.
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Jan 9, 2016 23:00
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TGG posted:As someone who worked for 5 years as a library aide at a library 3 blocks from the beach in San Diego, I can say comfortably that libraries exist down here largely for the homeless. The sheer number of people I caught masturbating is stunning, I constantly had to chase people off of our roof until eventually we just began throwing fish on the roof to bring in enough seagulls/smell to just block it off. I learned that crabs are easily visible on bloody tampons and that Jackie Kennedy was for sure in on the assassination of JFK. I have had cum thrown at me and I've had several people try and bite me. I also read some incredible books and met some fascinating people so I can comfortably say libraries are a crap-shoot. Yeah, that seems to be fairly normal in warmer parts of the U.S., sadly. I use the Princeton Library, which is what most libraries aspire to be. I actually belong to two, and I want for nothing. 
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Jan 10, 2016 00:51
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TGG posted:As someone who worked for 5 years as a library aide at a library 3 blocks from the beach...
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Oct 5, 2016 09:22
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Libraries are cool and good. Here in the UK we seem to have less of a masturbation problem than the US it seems. I attend my library quite regularly and have never heard of anyone tugging one out. Anyway, when I was a kid I practically lived in the library, and then when I was an adult my first major job was in a library, so I was living the dream. Like most good things in the world, though, they're under constant threat by people who want to destroy them. Support your libraries, people.
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Oct 5, 2016 15:55
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Yeah, I've actually revised my opinion of my local library this year. They've done a lot of work with it, dropped the fee and instituted a new inter library loan system. It's quiet, clean, and staffed by delightfully odd and charming people. Not really a bloody crabs and masturbating hobo place. edit: still has arcane opening hours though. Enfys fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Oct 6, 2016 |
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Oct 6, 2016 14:02
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I'm a professional librarian. None of the libraries I've worked at have had a masturbation or hobo problem. In five years working at three different libraries, only seen a masturbation problem once and that was a 14 year old kid watching anime porn. From what I understand, that crap is more a big city problem than a library problem per se.
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Oct 6, 2016 14:34
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i did my undergrad at a small uni in rural PA and the main reason that they finally password-protected the computers was that mennonites kept coming in and watching porn i dont think they were masturbating but they were definitely watching porn
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Oct 6, 2016 20:00
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I buy books so I can write in them, op. that way I don't have to look up words again when I re-read them 
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Oct 6, 2016 20:24
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One of my favorite regulars was an old guy who went by Tommy who was one of the 3 Zapruder Tape watchers that we had come in frequently. He came up to check out Tora! Tora! Tora! the 70s Pearl Harbor film and just dropped the movie in front of me and stared at me. I asked him what he needed and he proceeded to ask me what Tora meant. I said "I think it means dive?" and he said "Yeah, I ever tell you that I'm a diver?". I say no I had no idea and he then screams at the top of his lungs "YEAH I'M A MUFF DIVER!" There are like 12 people in the library who all look over and the place gets deathly silent. He then left the movie and just walked away like nothing had happened and I didn't see him for a good 2 months.
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Oct 6, 2016 20:43
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hog fat posted:I buy books so I can write in them, op. that way I don't have to look up words again when I re-read them When I worked at the Library people used to do this and it was official policy to erase anything written in pencil but I never bothered if it was just assorted notes or whatever. Provided they were of reasonable quality and not pictures of cocks or whatever I thought they were quite charming and added to the books. For some ungodly reason I can't fathom people also used to use bank notes for bookmarks quite a bit. They'd then forget about it when they came to return them and it would be a slight bonus to our rather modest pay. I was probably not the ideal example of Librarian material
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Oct 6, 2016 22:13
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I used the library last month, sat in a nice cloth chair, and got swarmed by bedbugs. I used the family bathroom to strip and get rid of as many as possible, and washed both myself and my clothes in seriously hot water as soon as I got home. When I used the library this month I made sure to only touch metal chairs. A+ would borrow books again.
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Oct 7, 2016 01:23
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thatdarnedbob posted:I used the library last month, sat in a nice cloth chair, and got swarmed by bedbugs. I used the family bathroom to strip and get rid of as many as possible, and washed both myself and my clothes in seriously hot water as soon as I got home. When I used the library this month I made sure to only touch metal chairs. A+ would borrow books again. When I was a kid we used to.check out stuffed animal puppets from the library. I can't imagine how gross they actually were and it kind of seems like a weird thing now that I look back at it. My closest library is a tiny location in a strip mall. It's not very good for browsing or hanging out in, but it's nice that I can order books from any other library online and pick them up there.
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Oct 9, 2016 13:18
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The Grey posted:When I was a kid we used to.check out stuffed animal puppets from the library. I can't imagine how gross they actually were and it kind of seems like a weird thing now that I look back at it. Yeah statistically it's basically guaranteed that one of those puppets was hosed before you got it
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Oct 9, 2016 17:32
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The Grey posted:When I was a kid we used to.check out stuffed animal puppets from the library. I can't imagine how gross they actually were and it kind of seems like a weird thing now that I look back at it. I work at a library and one of my jobs is to wash the puppets. We have a washing machine and they're cleaned every time they're used. I bet a library with a lower budget, though, could very well let them fester!
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Oct 9, 2016 18:29
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libraries are free, heated, and have plenty of resources (books,magazines,music depending on the branch,computers) that make a good place to hang if you have no money/homeless/bored out of your mind
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Oct 10, 2016 02:21
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Check out this library. By turning an abandoned Walmart into its new main library, a very poor county with less than 1 million residents combatted blight while getting a world-class library on the cheap.
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Oct 10, 2016 16:53
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The DC library system owns, generally
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Oct 12, 2016 02:00
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Having fun isn't hard, if you have a library card. Libraries are good.
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Oct 12, 2016 17:29
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black potus posted:Having fun isn't hard, if you have a library card.
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Oct 15, 2016 21:24
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I moved to Chicago last year, and the library system here is so loving dope. There's about 60 locations, and you can place a hold on any item in circulation to be picked up at any location you want. When you check out a book, you get it for 3 weeks, and then--are you sitting down--you can renew it online FIFTEEN TIMES. And you can have FIFTY books out at once. So, literally you could have 50 books delivered to your closest branch, and then keep them for 11 months. It is totally insane. I love it.
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Oct 17, 2016 00:25
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Base Camp Blanket posted:I moved to Chicago last year, and the library system here is so loving dope. Can you still renew a book if someone else places a hold on it? Because that would be a frustrating system for a lot of people. I just renewed a book I've finished because I can't get to the library for the next several days, but at least I know no one else is actively trying to check it out.
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Oct 17, 2016 17:53
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the uni where i did my MA had a system where you could recall a book & the guy with it checked it out would have 48 hours to return it. once i and someone else must have been writing a paper on the same topic because we recalled and re-recalled the same very obscure academic book from each other probably 7 times in a month
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Oct 17, 2016 18:58
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You should have left each other passive aggressive marginalia
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Oct 17, 2016 19:10
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Base Camp Blanket posted:I moved to Chicago last year, and the library system here is so loving dope. yo what the gently caress my library system lets me renew everything--seriously-- once. ONCE! I check out massive tomes that I'm never going to pay to own, that's the whole point, and then you're telling me I have six weeks to read 1,300 pages?
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Oct 18, 2016 04:31
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Zesty Mordant posted:yo what the gently caress my library system lets me renew everything--seriously-- once. ONCE! I check out massive tomes that I'm never going to pay to own, that's the whole point, and then you're telling me I have six weeks to read 1,300 pages? Mine's the same and I'm not sure how they expect me to read Bottom's Dream in that time
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Oct 18, 2016 06:01
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thatdarnedbob posted:Check out this library. By turning an abandoned Walmart into its new main library, a very poor county with less than 1 million residents combatted blight while getting a world-class library on the cheap. This is cool and all but I'd hate reading somewhere that obviously used to be a Wal-Mart even if it had inexplicable traffic-cone orange rectangles everywhere e:  WE  HAVE  NO  TASTE  Eugene V. Dubstep fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Oct 18, 2016 |
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Oct 18, 2016 06:07
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One of the projects I worked on for my MA was sort of ethnographic research on our huge local public library because I hadn't set foot in a public library in about 20 years. It's pretty cool and good, so much so that I applied for an assistant librarianship there recently. I do not expect to get it. In my entire time there I never saw a librarian who was anything other than a vaguely prudish white lady. The stereotype is alive here. Also fantasy zone posted:libraries are free, heated, and have plenty of resources (books,magazines,music depending on the branch,computers) that make a good place to hang if you have no money/homeless/bored out of your mind This is totally a thing. I interviewed a childrens' librarian who works in that part of the building which is its own entire thing, and she explained that on several occasions she's had to make the hard choice about whether or not to ask sleeping clearly-homeless people to leave the childrens' library. Like she was torn between her obligation to keep the kids safe and the general policy of not letting adults loiter there and her compassion for the needy and it fuckin' sucked.
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Oct 18, 2016 13:10
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wizard on a water slide posted:One of the projects I worked on for my MA was sort of ethnographic research on our huge local public library because I hadn't set foot in a public library in about 20 years. It's pretty cool and good, so much so that I applied for an assistant librarianship there recently. Depending on where a branch is located, letting random adults use the children's area can be a really loving bad idea for obvious reasons. People also don't realize how many parents expect their kids to just hang out at the library without supervision up until it closes at night. Librarians are increasingly expected to be babysitters, mental health experts, and beggars (getting funding from grants). Library work is fun and rewarding but it's not always the kind of work that people expect. If you like interesting/funny library anecdotes, read the book Free for All by Borchert.
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Oct 19, 2016 03:39
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the fact of the matter is if your homeless/poor there not many places for you to go that's not a shelter and you can't stay there all day most of the time and being on the street can be dangerous because you are despised and cops will harass you it sucks but like adults should not be hanging around childrens spaces though
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Oct 19, 2016 03:54
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thatdarnedbob posted:Check out this library. By turning an abandoned Walmart into its new main library, a very poor county with less than 1 million residents combatted blight while getting a world-class library on the cheap. This owns.
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Oct 21, 2016 11:03
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Enfys posted:Can you still renew a book if someone else places a hold on it? Because that would be a frustrating system for a lot of people. I just renewed a book I've finished because I can't get to the library for the next several days, but at least I know no one else is actively trying to check it out. You cannot renew an item that another patron has placed on hold. I didn't know that, but it's a good policy for the reason you describe. My respect for this library system continues to grow!
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Oct 22, 2016 14:27
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