Wednesday, June 17, 2009

When the library fails...

I asked my husband last week if I was melodramatic. Ok, I actually said something like, "I'm not that melodramatic, am I?" Obviously, the answer should have been no. It was more like, "sometimes." So I followed up by saying, "I'm not as melodramatic as N!" (our son). My husband replied, "You're also not 1 year old."

This is all to say...the title to this post may have been a little melodramatic.

As you may recall, once I finished the John Marsden Tomorrow series, I decided that I absolutely had to read the follow-up trilogy, the Ellie Chronicles. I checked the first in the series, While I Live, out from my local library and devoured it in two days. For me, this is very fast, even with a YA novel. I knew going into this that our local library had no copies of the second two books in the series. No problem--I would just ILL them (order them through InterLibrary Loan, for those of you who don't speak librarian) through work. Our ILL person can get ANYTHING!

Except, unfortunately, she can't. I requested the series' second book, Incurable, and today was told that she couldn't get it. (I hadn't ordered the third book yet--I wanted to wait until I had the second in my hot little hands, since I know that sometimes later books in series arrive sooner than earlier books--and you don't get an extended loan to wait for the earlier book to arrive.) Apparently, of all the libraries in the world (or at least the U.S.) that own the book (and there aren't that many of them), only 2 of them are possible lenders to us, and neither would fill the request! Boo, hiss!

After despairing for about a minute, then thinking that I'd better go order them on Amazon (and actually looking them up; $7.50 each, which isn't bad, but I'd want to buy the first one, too, and would also be tempted by the first seven books--and we're buying an organ soon, so I need to cut back on book buying to make some room!), I decided to try one other library option. I filled out a suggestion form to ask my local public library to buy these two books.

Keep your fingers crossed...and tell your local legislators to support funding for libraries!

2 comments:

Katharine said...

Speaking of melodrama...my heart dies a small death each time I hear about funding cuts for libraries. Libraries and parks are some of the few bonds for which I always vote "YES!!"

I admire your restraint in saving for the organ. What are looking for -a kidney? A gallbladder? A liver, perhaps? :-)

Libby said...

Thanks for your comment--and thank you for voting for library funding!

Heehee, a kidney would take up a lot less space than the digital, musical organ we are getting--but it would be messier!