As promised in my last post, today was library day! The Main Carnegie Library is almost exactly halfway between my apartment and school, so I made a plan to go visit today. I love reading/libraries/getting new cards for my wallet, so it seemed like a perfect outing.
Let me start by saying that even though I pass the library almost daily, I completely missed the bus stop and ended up getting off about a half mile away and walking. Luckily, this walk did not involve any hills or multiple bags of groceries as my other walks have seemed to lately.
When I arrived at the library, my first thought was "I need a card!" I went to the card desk and discovered that I needed two different things to get a card. 1) a photo ID (check!) and 2) proof of an Allegheny county, Pennsylvania address (um, what?). Apparently, if your ID is not Pennsylvania-issued, you have to prove that you have an address in the area. Having only obtained library cards in central Ohio, I've never dealt with this whole "your driver's license doesn't match our state and so you need to show you actually live here" thing. Not preparing for this, I didn't have any accepted forms of proof, like a bill or lease copy on me. However, I certainly did not walk .5 mile and get sweaty and take an extra bus to be told that I couldn't have a card. Taking a chance, I walked up to the circulation desk, explained my issue, and asked if I could use the internet. The helpful librarian got me logged into a guest account so that I could print off a copy of my lease that I had stored in my inbox. Feeling triumphant, I headed for the customer service desk with both required items. There, a helpful man-brarian (a librarian that's male) informed me that my lease did not actually have my apartment's building address on it. UM, WTF? It's an apartment lease, how can it not list the apartment's address? Sure enough though, the man-brarian was right, and my triumph at demonstrating resourcefulness was starting to wear off. The man-brarian must have sensed my anxiety, and he came up with a brilliant idea. My lease did state which building I would be living in, so he used the name to look it up on my landlord's website. Finally! I got my card! I profusely thanked the man-brarian and proceded to check-out four movies and seven books.
Unfortunately, there is no picture of the day today. I had plans to photograph the library, but I left my memory card in the computer last night. A camera sans memory card doesn't do much of anything.
Tomorrow morning my whole lab group is meeting to watch the World Cup again - should be a great game!
Until then,
B
Haha, so I typed up a pretty long comment to this entry a few days ago, but I guess it got eaten :(
ReplyDeleteI just love that you called him a man-brarian :) And I also love how resourceful you were in convincing them that you deserved a library card.
ALSO fun fact: Every library in Ohio that takes state funds MUST give you a library card, so if you wanted to, you could probs get a card in Cleveland and check books out there, you know, just for fun.
Fun fact #2: My old co-worker, Julie, collects working library cards from all over the place. She has one from Ireland. This = my new goal :)