O.o ?!
See the little face up there that looks as if it's asking "WTF?!" that is what I looked like yesterday afternoon. I went to the library- I love libraries... and librarians (I used to be a clerk!)- because I wanted to check out a copy of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. I own a copy (actually I have a Lewis Carroll collection) but it's still packed away after my recent move, and rather than dig through a mountain of book boxes (the library is the only room I haven't unpacked yet) I thought it would be easier to just go check out a copy, while at the same time getting a new library card.
Sounds like a good idea right?
I thought so too.
When I got there, I couldn't find it. So, I asked if it had been checked out already, and do you know what I was told?
No? Let me tell you.
"We don't carry Lewis Carroll."
My first reaction was to pull a face similar to the one shown in the subject header and shout "The HELL!?" I restrained myself however, and instead calmly asked why.
This is what I was told; "He was a substance abuser- we do carry the Disney books though." (No idea if this was her reasoning or the head librarian's)
My response; "Uh-huh. That's great. But I don't want the Disney book," which is basically a thirty-some-odd page recap of Disney's Alice in Wonderland.
The library clerk then told me: "One of the other libraries might have it. You could try them."
Yeah... so in the end I didn't get the book. I refuse to wander around a city I am as yet unfamiliar with and quite probably become lost just so that I can find another library which may or may not have the book in question (I will be unpacking my book boxes tomorrow morning).
What the HELL is wrong with people! It's a book! Libraries are supposed to carry books, are they not?
This makes four libraries in the past four years that I have gone to only to find that they do not carry Lewis Carroll. Some of them, I could understand as the majority of their shelves were kept full via donations. But to say you don't carry CLASSIC LITERATURE because the author did this or that is EPICALLY STUPID! It's right up there with the banning of books like The Bermudez Triangle from school libraries, or worse book burning (Uh, okay, book burning may be worse than refusing to stock books by a certain author but still, book bans are idiotic on a massive scale)!
I'm so aggravated I want to gouge something... like that clerk's eyes maybe.
~Jam
PS. I would like to take this opportunity to point out once more the EPIC STUPIDITY of it all.
[he wasn't a "substance abuser" either]