Embarassment
OK, I can't actually remember the last time I've been in a 'branch library' before today. University libraries, repository libraries, hell, academic bookstores, even big chain bookstores. But walking home this evening, I decided to stop in at the branch library a mere block from my current place of residence and break in my new City Library Card.
It's fucking awful. I was thinking some Hegel, maybe some Kant, maybe I'd get really really lucky and find some literary theory. I wasn't counting on the philosophy 'section' being one and the same as both the 'religion' section and the 'mysticism' section, and also rolled in with 'psychology', blending imperceptibly into what must have been 'sociology'. Teach Yourself Dream Interpretation? Kaballah in 30 Minutes? L. Ron Fucking Hubbard? I use the scare quotes intentionally; these are sections and/or categories only in the loosest of senses. In the library's defence, I suppose, they had a tolerable biography section, a cute little section on New York, and a Spanish-language section, presumably a concession to the actual neighborhood. But it was truly truly apalling how few books were in this library. Barnes and fucking Noble stores have more books, even more non-fiction and classics and philosophy and religion, and are better fucking organised, than was Small Branch Library.
OK, they have no money. No budget. Free wireless access, lots of VHS tapes and DVDs, even a full-time 'reference' librarian, although the one query I saw her answer was 'Where can i find something on World War II' (from a well dressed man in his 40s who is either a complete idiot or was engaging in the little known - but quite popular in its underground circles - pasttime of librarian baiting. Her answer? 'Umm. Why don't you ask her, over there, she just showed somebody else where those books are'. (And, again, the Civil War and World War II were modestly, though reasonably, represented. World War I, apparently, just not as popular. Plus 2 copies of Heaney's Beowulf and a copy of Donaldson's translation.) But I'm truly horrified - the ivory tower aspect, something i don't generally believe in (it's an ivory tower only if you let it be; get off your ass and out there if it's an issue) driven home, hard, in the face of the intellectual and, well, book-ish poverty of my local library.
It's fucking awful. I was thinking some Hegel, maybe some Kant, maybe I'd get really really lucky and find some literary theory. I wasn't counting on the philosophy 'section' being one and the same as both the 'religion' section and the 'mysticism' section, and also rolled in with 'psychology', blending imperceptibly into what must have been 'sociology'. Teach Yourself Dream Interpretation? Kaballah in 30 Minutes? L. Ron Fucking Hubbard? I use the scare quotes intentionally; these are sections and/or categories only in the loosest of senses. In the library's defence, I suppose, they had a tolerable biography section, a cute little section on New York, and a Spanish-language section, presumably a concession to the actual neighborhood. But it was truly truly apalling how few books were in this library. Barnes and fucking Noble stores have more books, even more non-fiction and classics and philosophy and religion, and are better fucking organised, than was Small Branch Library.
OK, they have no money. No budget. Free wireless access, lots of VHS tapes and DVDs, even a full-time 'reference' librarian, although the one query I saw her answer was 'Where can i find something on World War II' (from a well dressed man in his 40s who is either a complete idiot or was engaging in the little known - but quite popular in its underground circles - pasttime of librarian baiting. Her answer? 'Umm. Why don't you ask her, over there, she just showed somebody else where those books are'. (And, again, the Civil War and World War II were modestly, though reasonably, represented. World War I, apparently, just not as popular. Plus 2 copies of Heaney's Beowulf and a copy of Donaldson's translation.) But I'm truly horrified - the ivory tower aspect, something i don't generally believe in (it's an ivory tower only if you let it be; get off your ass and out there if it's an issue) driven home, hard, in the face of the intellectual and, well, book-ish poverty of my local library.
posted by itinerarium at 5:54 PM
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