Don't Mess with the Library

Librarians get a bad rap a lot of times. They're often seen as nerdy and bookish (for obvious reasons) and being completely obsessed with the Dewey Decimal System. Now although I think that the Dewey Decimal System is probably one of the smartest means of creating a database, it wasn't appealing enough for me to consider looking into Library Sciences as a major in college. Again, not to knock librarians, but it just didn't have the appeal that it has for some. That may be surprising considering the fact that I love going to the library. I can remember feeling lazy one day back when I was in elementary school (probably in the 6th Grade) and so my dad said that my brother and I could take the day off and be at home.

Now in this day and age most kids would take that to mean that they had the entire day to play on their XBox, Playstation or what-have-you. At that time, we only had the original Nintendo and though we played it incessently, we were never good enough to beat very many of the games. Regardless, we didn't even think of that as one of the 'fun' activities for our unexpected day off; rather we were excited at the prospect of going to the library. I remember walking in there and for the first time, seeing it completely devoid of kids running around and causing general mischief. I managed to get lots of books to tide me over until my next visit but it was also when I first saw the somewhat 'darker' side of the library. When I checked out that day, I vividly remember the librarian asking my brother and I if there was a school holiday today. We meekly responded that it wasn't and he gave us this suspicious smile and nod. Hey! We were at the library weren't we? It was sort of an educational hooky.

That's not to say that I became terrified of the library or librarians but it just made me realize that they also have some degree of authority. People often scoff at that concept or even the mere suggestion that librarians can make your life a living hell but it's the truth. Ask Heidi Dalibor of Wisconsin; she was recently arrested for having $30 in library fees for a pair of overdue paperback novels. Apparently she ignored repeated letters and phone calls from the library and finally, the library dispatched a sheriff's deputy to arrest Dalibor for excessive library fines. Now some may see this as being an excessive force of justice but as the saying goes, to make an omlette you have to break some eggs. In this case, if you ever want the library to prove that overdue fines are no joke then you need to make an example of someone.

I'm sure Ms. Dalibor is a very nice person and wasn't purposely ignoring the pleas of the librarians but still, who takes them that seriously and why should you need to? For good or for bad, most people take the library for granted. It's sad that there are such vast repositories of knowledge virtually at your fingertips and so many people let it go to waste. Perhaps it's rather nerdy of me to admit but I have spent countless hours browsing in the library and I have discovered so many new and interesting things that it's made me better in my general understanding of so many things. One can never claim that the library doesn't have something of your interest. I wasn't always a heavy reader but it just took that one book to stimulate my interest and since then I've probably read thousands upon thousands of books. Librarians have the power to open some of these roads to you; that is as long as you stay on the straight and narrow with them. Now that they have ties to the cops, maybe you better pay attention to the due dates on your books a little closer.