Tuesday, April 22, 2008

More about Libraries........

After posting about libraries and reading the comments, my library musings continued.

First of all, note to self - don't ever borrow books from Julie. I love her description of keeping books clean and pristine - but I am of the corner-turning, crack'em open school of reading. I try hard to use one of the many bookmarks I have been given over the years, but somehow turning down the corner is just so very easy and direct and effective. I also must confess that I have recently started to clean out all the dusty books from my shelves at home. Last summer I did a huge clean - and packed up boxes of books for the Salvation Army. I think it is part of my need to divest myself of stuff - many of the books I had owned for years and many had sentimental value - but - dang it - they were unread, unloved and dusty. I hope they went to a good new home.

One thing I am particular about (from my library days) and I know that many will disagree with me when it comes to home libraries - always place the spine of the book on the outside edge of the bookcase - always . See - I bet lots of you disagree with me.

Now it is time for a confession. But first I will give my excuse so that you might regard me in a less harsh light. The excuse is: because I worked in a library where employees didn't have to pay overdue fines, I got into the terrible habit of never remembering or caring when books had to be returned. The confession is: I have never learned to return things on time (another reason never to borrow books from Julie). I have paid a king's ransom (King of England, probably) in overdue fines in both the library world and the video-store world. "Ma'am, there is $8.50 outstanding on your account" - words that I have heard often. It is funny that here in Wichita, where we have limited space (living in a hotel room will do that) and lots of time, I have managed to better keep control of library and video rentals. I'm hoping this new-found maturity and responsibility will extend to when I get back to Canada.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Was curious about you comment about shelving books with the spine on the edge of the shelf. Is there another way to shelve books? All my books are shelved that way and sometimes when I have time I try to arrange the books by category and author. Much easier to find books that way.

I have trouble with fines occasionally because I will start a book and then I see another book that I find fascinating and start it forgetting about the other book whose due date is seems to come up faster than expected. Where do those three weeks go? Hate that phone call " the following customer has an overdue book". Good to know that I am not the only person who has overdues.
Nora

Anonymous said...

It probably won't surprise you when I say that I've never had to pay an overdue fine in my life - how uptight is that! And I never put the spines of the book on the front edge of the bookshelf. That would mean that I wouldn't be able to put pictures, etc in front of the books and would make dusting far more difficult (assuming I get around to dusting).
Julie