Nero Tolerance

[footnotefetish]

I saw Star Trek on Sunday with clockworkalien, bryanhelm, speranzosa, Joe, and locakitty. I've never been a Star Trek fan, but for some reason I really wanted to see it. It was as good as I anticipated.

Earlier in the day the six of us played a game of Super Scrabble at Rincon Market. I wish we would have had time for another game, one is better than nothing

Comments

[flw]

I wouldn't get too angry at the Library for this situation... in the game of lending free books... they seem to be the only game in town. Libraries have hold copies and shelf copies. In other words, when a book is very popular, they always try to keep a few copies ON THE SHELVES, or more particular on the upfront shelves that people have to walk past to get to the computers or DVDs. The reason for this is to serve the walk-in people, or people who are computer-shy, or just browsers... people who haven't read a book since college. If they hear about a book on the NPR and go to the Library and the Library doesn't have it, and ALL COPIES are ON HOLD, they get pissed and never try the Library again. It is very important that these types of people get a bit of preferential treatment, because the first trip to a Library in years can be intimidating. There is great, great, great pressure to turn Libraries into Public Babysitting Services with 9,000 copies of Harry Potter and wall-to-wall computers. So, anything that keeps books a part of the

[footnotefetish]

I understand totally. I think it would take a lot for me to actually get angry at a library or librarian. I guess I hadn't considered that they need to accommodate the aliterate crowd, if that's the term for them. (LiveJournal just underlined aliterate as if the word doesn't exist, but I think I read once that that's the term for people who know how to read but don't bother reading--or maybe only do the bare minimum of reading they need to get by in this society.) I suppose a lot of organizations have to do that; for example, history museums have to appeal to the people who are indifferent to history, for the sake of having the visitor numbers to justify their grants and other funding. And that can be annoying to those of us who would naturally go to these places and require more maintenance, since we want to consume more of their knowledge, services, etc.; too much of their time (from our perspective) is spent tossing pearls before swine (to state it more irreverently than I wish, but that's the first way of wording it that came

[flw]

It seems to me that this change is quite recent. There might be something going on, they might have budget cuts or who knows what. The library here is crap compared to the library in LA, which is garbage compared to the Library in Pittsburgh, which was amazing... I am just falling down the Library Ranks.

When money comes into the picture, a thing is all about the money. So libraries here make no pretense of serving literacy. They are in it to secure funding, and if they can't do that, there is little chance of there being a book on the shelves at all. I do think the Library is corrupt here, though. You have seen what goes through the Friends of the Library.

They buy 500 copies of Harry Potter, and one or two Vandana Shiva. And you will find Shiva at the Friends of the Library in a few months. The whole system is suspicious. There's a lot of money moving through.

[footnotefetish]

You've noticed it, too, huh? I swear, working those book sales, I have to wonder if someone at the PCPL is taking gifts (or having an affair) with one or two reps from one or two book distributors. I've been back in the warehouse area, and I know there's an ungodly number of books in there. People who have only seen the sale area are only seeing a fraction of the books they have. In spite of that, you can be putting out books and still see many multiples of one book

[flw]

It's called "Verticality" versus "Horizontality". And it is STUPID to focus on Verticality, because they can easily... EASILY have both. But they won't do it. Because it is even easier to blow it all in one place. I guarantee you that at the center of this is one harried, "overworked", key-jangling rich broad who is working her job as "more of a hobby than a career". These types always favor "verticality" because it takes little of their precious time (What do we order? 800 Harry Potters and 50 each of the New York Times Top 10 Best Sellers... DONE!) and leaves a lot of time for "important" things like making certain the Valet's Vests are color coordinated at the important Fundraiser that costs $130,000, but... raises as much as $132,500 every year