Tales from the Public Library – Part 2

I don’t feel like I really live in a place until I have a public library card. More so than the lease on an apartment, or even updating the address on my license. For me nothing says I am a member of the community more than patronage of the local public library.

I don’t suppose everyone feels this way, but it’s a principle I have held since my youth. Everywhere I have lived, as soon as I am able, I make it a point to get my library card.

Two years ago, I was disappointed and shocked at the disparity between the libraries in my old haunt in Virginia vs the hoity toity town I lived in New Jersey for a brief insane moment (the hoity toity Cherry Hill being the more disappointing of the two).

My expectations were high when the time came to get my library card here in Texas.

Every bitch I had about the ass backward Cherry Hill library system has been quieted. Dallas is like the library system in Chesapeake: a multi-branch system from which I can order any books online, delivered to whichever branch I want and take out 99 BOOKS AT A TIME!! What?!

I thought I had it good with the 20, then 30 book limit in Chesapeake. My eyes almost bugged out of my head when the librarian told me my limit as she was completing my registration process. That is just an insane amount of books to have out at one time!

Yet that is the benefit of a good library system–if they can afford to have their patrons have that many books out at one time, then they have a huge catalog of books to pull from. I am one happy reader!

Happily they don’t feel the need to charge library members for DVDs or CDs or audio books (unlike those money grubbers back in Cherry Hill). Ah, the joys of having open access again, what a delight!

One more sign that moving here was a good idea.