I like going to the library. If I will be in a town for more than a month; I call myself a resident and get a card. At one time in my life I had books checked out from 5
different library systems.
The worse library system that I have ever encountered is the Multnomah County Library. Those surly librarians were always annoyed with me for some reason. When I was a kid, the children’s librarian was always scolding me for not being carful enough when using the big dictionary. She would run over and say, “We have to be very careful with this; it is very fragile.â€? Why would anyone buy a fragile dictionary to begin with and then to add stupidity on top of impracticability, put it in the children’s library?
As I got older I ventured out of the children’s library. When I brought my books to the check out they would say” these are adult books you need to get permission to check them out. Go to the big desk.” Most of my life, checking out books at the downtown library required going, for one reason or another, to that big desk. As I remember it was this large room with soaring ceilings and a very high counter like a judge’s pulpit and there I would have to plead my case as to why they should let me check out books. Sometimes they wouldn’t let me. Most of the times I was sent there was because of overdue library fines.
The exorbitant library fines were hard when it was just me; a good chunk of my babysitting money would go to the library, but when I had a child they became crushing. It doesn’t take very long to read a children’s book so we would have to get quite a few children’s book at a time to keep us in reading material very long. Since life gets busy when you are a single parent working 60 hours a week sometimes the books wouldn’t get returned on time. Often the fines exceeded the price of the item I had checked out. At one point I just started buying books instead of going to the library, saying, “It’s justs cheaper, this way.”
We moved away from the Multnomah county library and started going to the Forest Grove library where they didn’t have fines and the librarian is happy that you came in to get some books.
My son came up with this theory about librarians: There are two kinds of librarians: (1) those that see themselves as keepers of knowledge and(2) those that think of themselves as educators of the community.
The keepers of knowledge don’t want you to check out any books they just want to have them all there still in the same condition as when they bought them… Those librarians are never happy when you come in to take “theirâ€? books and I think if they could, would like all the books under glass and locked up.
Then there are the librarians that see themselves as educators of the community and those librarians see books as tools that need to be used to be of any use. They are happy when you come in and happy to see you leave with a bunch of books.
We eventually moved back to Portland, right away the fines started piling up. (Now the library had videos and the late fee for a video was a dollar a day!) But we always paid them before they would let us check out more books. But then the Multnomah County Library started giving their accounts to a collection agency. This is not for unreturned library books this is for books that were returned late. My son moved away to Florida and went to buy a house. When he applied for a loan, his credit report had a ding on it from the Multnomah County Library. Even the loan officer was surprised to find that someone’s credit rating had been hurt from overdue library fines.
I have since moved away, myself. Yet once when driving through town I stopped to use the Internet, as I have done in dozens of libraries across the country. The librarian said the internet is only for people with a Multnomah County library card. Since library cards don’t expire, I said I have one but I don’t have it with me. She looked me up in the computer, turned to me and with a look and a voice most often found on police officers and Nazis said, “You know, you have 97 dollars in fines”.
I have 47 dollars in fines from last year. ive returned every book even the overdue books. The overdue ones usualy were 2 weeks late at the most. 35 out of the 97 titles ive checked out there are over due. I plan to pay it off when i have enough money. Hopefully they dont send the collection agency on me. I live in bethany so getting to multnoma is hard sometimes. Mostly went there because of the selection. I like the one in yamhill because it feels like a castle that keeps the unsafe people out though they still hang out on the sidewalk… i used to bring a small rolling suitcase and would pile books. The benefits of checking out lots of books is that tho its never happened to me if someone were to attack me i could roll the suitcase over their toes. Or lift it over my head. When i was younger those thoughts kept me strong and brave. :3 i enjoy the thought of punishing those who deserve it. :3 woops i rambled on.
Good luck on paying off those fines—maybe you can negotiate them down.
Now, I live where the library doesn’t have fines and they mail the books to me. Plus you can check out e-books, from the library, online now and they are automatically returned when they are due. I’m glad to be done with the Multnomah County Library system.