spoiled rotten September 12, 2007
Posted by KC in uncategorized.trackback
I finally got up to the library here, to set up my account, and discovered that the library doesn’t have any service for paging books or delivering books through campus mail. A snotty librarian lurking behind the circulation desk cast a derisive smirk at the very idea that a university library would send books to patrons.
I’m not sure I deserved that smirk. I think that, from her point of view, I’m just too lazy to get my own books out of the stacks. But I’ve been at two universities now (one of them belonging to the same larger state univ. system) that delivered books–free of charge–to both faculty and graduate students. I always figured that those schools saw such a service as a way to support research and scholarship–not to mention all the possible work-study funding for undergrads.
Maybe those other places spoiled me. The thing is, I don’t particularly mind getting my own books, even though time in the stacks is not especially productive. It just seems, well, not as supportive as I’m used to.
I’m curious what other folks’ libraries do. Is it unusual for libraries to deliver books to faculty and/or grad students?
One thing I didn’t mention was that, apparently, I can appoint up to four “proxies” to come get books out of the library for me. In other words, if I had grant money to burn, I could hire undergrad lackeys to get books.
What annoys me is that this policy acknowledges that it’s nice to have other people get your books for you, but says you have to provide your own service.
oh, how i love our book delivery system… i’m quite sure that i might crack under the weight of all those books for fields if i were carrying them around the stacks and then back to the english building … i’d also need a much bigger bag (which would just exacerbate the weight problem …)