Illness Makes Me Grumpy
We have a short intermission, because hey, stretching out a story is fun. Also, I feel the stirrings of whatever virus is going around the library, and it’s making me generally irritable. Hence the title, which is now a tradition.
In addition to the normal level of pathogens brought in by my coworkers (who often double as parents to sick children), I get to constantly handle a stream of books that, honestly, are quite filthy. Seriously. Library books are somewhat like money–it’s passed from person to person, thrown in cars and book drops, often coming in wet (shudder) or abused.
So, if you’re reading this, do me a favor. No, it isn’t "sterilize your books". It’s TAKE CARE OF THEM. Public library books do not spontaneously respawn for free when you trash them. If your child can’t read a book without ripping the cover or spilling his drink on it, do us a favor and spend your money on a copy of it, not ours. If you’re carrying a stack of books in through the Washington winter rains, know what? Cover them. Put them inside your jacket. Use a goddamn plastic bag, for fuck’s sake.
Ahem.
I realize accidents happen, but I also realize a lot of people simply don’t care. I cannot understand this attitude. If something is not yours, you take care of it. Isn’t that a corollary to the Golden Rule? Isn’t that the Eleventh Commandment? If something is yours, do whatever the hell you want with it. Me, I choose "take care of it, too", but I know that’s pretty radical for some people.
As an auxiliary rant, it irritates me that people don’t know how to put books back where they got them from. Dewey Decimal isn’t that hard. I can somewhat understand people who leave books out; I know that some library systems, god forbid, actually don’t want people to shelve books. Fine. I think it’s stupid, but no harm, no foul. However, I completely do not understand the people who put books back randomly.
302.21 Bunnicula
302.21 Egges
302.21 Jabberwocky
302.21 Snurfle
792.3419 Acasanole
302.21 Tabbie
302.22 Cheesetoas
302.22 Coffeeplz
302.22 Mysteri
I mean, seriously. It’s not even remotely correct. What is difficult to understand about a system based on numerical order? Do people not realize that other people might want to find those books too? That we don’t have a spine-scanning bionic eye that enables us to immediately scan the entirety of our collection and instantly ascertain the location of misshelved material?
Each page/aide shelf reads at least 15 minutes a day. It takes the seven of us over a week just to get through Adult Nonfiction alone. That means a misshelved book can be there for a long, long time.
It takes like, 30 seconds of thought to choose between "leaving the book visibly out to be picked up", "putting the book back where I fucking found it", and "pissing Wren off by treating the collection like it’s a pinata". Spin around three times, let’s see where I put the book! Whee!
So please, treat us right, not just because it’s the correct thing to do, but because I have access to all of your home addresses, phone numbers, and email addys, and it’s not only the postal workers that sometimes snap.