Suggested Viewing

WCVE suggests we tune into "Save Our History" on Saturday, as it will feature some of the renovation to the Capitol.

Carded

Yeah, you see, that's actually exactly why we give you a card in the first place: so we don't have to look up the card number of each of the hundreds of patrons who walk in the doors of 9 locations across the county all day long. This isn't Ukrop's; I don't have some kind of manager's card I can magically wave over the scanner to grant everyone some magic discount. Your own library card is linked to useful information like your name, the number of minutes you get on library PCs each day, the titles of books in your laundry hamper and in the bed of your pick up truck right now; how much in back fines you owe us, and how much money you have on deposit so you can print things off the public PCs. It's a pretty darn useful thing! And I know it's a lot to ask you to carry when you already have all those credit cards, grocery store cards, gasoline station gizmos, memberships to warehouse stores, etc. . . . By the way, does Sam's Club even let you in the door if you forgot your card? You know, you can come into our place, soak up the too-strong A/C, get reference service (often, it's not this flippant!), use the bathroom, read any of our hundreds of magazines or thousands of books, use a meeting room, and even take a computer class without presenting that little piece of plastic. The only time you will need to present your card is to log onto a PC or to take some books out of the building.

Sure, I could look it up. I could look up people's card numbers all day and never sign anyone up for summer reading club (unofficial tagline: "Read Stuff, Win Fabulous Prizes!"), help them find books on How to Draw or how to "do a resume," or tell Mr. which is #3 in the Jan Karon series, 'cause he can't remember what the Mrs. told him to pick up.

But right now, actually, the server that stores all that information has gone bye-bye (as we say in the biz), so it's too bad that you didn't actually bring your library card to the library.