spiralngphoenix | (no subject)

The card got me thinking...
It's a reasonably well-known fact that I am a librarian's daughter, and that I spent much of my childhood in and around the town library in some fashion of another. Hell, in addition to generally being around, I substituted there on occasion before I was technically legal; when we switched from the "sign your name on the line" to "Here's a number", my number was 4, and even served as the secretary of the Junior Friends of the Library committee. I spent hours after school entering books into the new-fangled computer filing system. I remember being terribly excited about this new program called Inter-Library Loan, that meant I could request books from *gasp* other libraries (which, when your library is so small it only has a few thousand books, including the children's section, this is a HUGE THING). My mother started the Sunday morning Story Hour in our library. As I write this the original Story Bear, Pookie, who was purchased from a small toy shop that was only open in town for about a year and who was named by suggestion box drawing, sits on the back of the couch, watching me. (I keep thinking I should donate him to the library, but I just can't part with him. The library now is not the library I knew, and I can't be sure he will be given the proper respect he is due.)

Why the reminiscing about my childhood library? Well, you see, I got my first library card since I left town several years ago today. Why? At first it's because I didn't need to get a new one. My library card at my library was a "lifetime" one. (Or, more realistically, lifetime so long as the old guard were still around, and since they aren't I'm assuming my number's probably been given to someone else by now.) I was back and forth on a regular basis, so I could continue to check things out as a wanted. For the last few years, I've been a bit gypsyish. Somewhere along the way I had developed a strange view of libraries and library cards.

You see, I apparently hold libraries on the same level as, say, a sacred temple. While they are open to all, they should be deeply respected and revered, and not bothered by the small little ant that is me. (This does not, by the way, extend to anyone else... Everyone should take full advantage of their library!) Possessing a library card means that I am no longer a transient passing through, but says "I live here. I am a part of this community. I am here to stay." As I am still effectively transient (I live off the kindness and charity of a friend. It is his home, not mine. I'm just a stray animal taken in for fosterage until a more permanent home can be found for it), I have not gotten myself a library card until now, because then I would be admitting that I am going to be here for a while, and that means that I'm a resident.

Now, mind you, in the 34 years of my life, I have moved 28 times. Twelve of these were before the age of seven, and eight more of them between August of 2008 and August of 2009. I'm pretty sure at this point that I'm NEVER going to feel that I really live anywhere. I'm gun-shy on getting attached to places, because I'm only going to be moving again. So a piece of plastic that says "I live here"? Kind of terrifying...

I also freely admit that someday I'm going to make a therapist's bank account VERY HAPPY. I may have a few issues. ;)

So, yeah... weird day. I have a library card again. I'm not entirely sure what to do with this, just yet.

Cross-posted to Podrozny Studio

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I feel you on this. I didn't get a card the whole time I was living in Lowell, no matter how many times I said I should. It is an odd, odd thing.

Course in Mass most cards are to the network, so you can then use it at any library in the network, so it hardly matters where you actually live.

I have two cards in Mass. I can use nearly every library in Middlesex and Worchester Counties. I also still have my home town library card that I got in 1990, card number 987. I worked there from 1990 to 1997, multiple days a week. I applied for an actual job there in 2003. I am glad I didn't get it, I never would have left.

I also have cards to the library in Meredith NH, and Shelburne County Nova Scotia Canada and Dunedin New Zealand.

Amusingly the hardest card to get was the one in Ayer. They treated me like I had to be a derelict to want to use the library and that I couldn't be trusted since only the dregs of society use the library anymore. So I feel strongly that everyone get a card where ever they are and use it to prove to these stuffy old biddies that not only unemployed ex-convicts use the library anymore. It has something for everyone, and to think that you don't deserve a library card is to let the old biddies win. I refuse to go to the Ayer library anymore. I go to the neighboring ones instead since I can go to any of the libraries in the CWMARS network.

They used to, in the pre-network days. Or a lot of towns did, anyway. You also used to have to pay a reasonable chunk of change in some towns to get a library card there if you weren't a resident. (Exeter was something like $20 for years, to my annoyance, and that was after they finally started letting non-residents get cards there.) The day we got into the ILL program was the Best Day Ever.) Ours had something like every so many years you had to renew and prove you still lived in town. Don't know what they do now, as I haven't tried to check anything out in a few years.

I think I might be a little jealous of the Canada and NZ cards. ; ) Ugh, so the Ayer library managed to find the old ladies that fit the stereotype of cranky old librarian, huh? Joy. And they wonder why folks would rather look stuff up online and avoid the library... I got a really good impression on the one here, thankfully, and they seem to be highly involved in the town and region, too.

(no subject)

no subject

Library cards expire?

Re: Library cards expire?