Or French or Italian... It's the first time I have a local library where there's only one European language out on the shelves (there's a bucketload in storage but Tower Hamlets Council is intending to get rid of it). The foreign language books are in Bengali. There's probably Urdu and Arabic as well, but that would be it.
It's not like there's a lot of them. :-) My interest in SF/F combined with the high book prices in NL means that the vast majority of my books are in English. I didn't expect Bethnal Green to have any Dutch books, but I was sad and a little surprised not to be able to find any French books there.
I can look up the entire borough's catalogue on a poorly designed website and have it sent for free to Bethnal Green for pick up.
...and if it's not in a library in the borough then for a small fee you can have it sent from any other public library in the country that has it - at least you should be able to if it's a proper library!
Yes, indeed. Had forgotten about that for a moment, the borough catalogue is keeping me quite happy for now. (Or it would if it would finally cough up Otherland #4.)
The UK library system is a jewel left to us largely by the Victorians and generally, in spite of the attacks on the concept during the 80's (why would we want free libraries when we could knock them down and build offices instead of nasty public services) they largely remain. It is true to say they have survived better in some areas than others
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(I didn't scan far enough across your collection to notice those other languages.)
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...and if it's not in a library in the borough then for a small fee you can have it sent from any other public library in the country that has it - at least you should be able to if it's a proper library!
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