there's a cover charge for the bibliotheque? in a triumphant return to my local library -- after a layoff of about four years -- i was greeted with overdue fees totaling in the double digits, plus another dollar tacked on for "losing" my library card. your earthly sins can eventually be forgiven but not your library fines i guess. after paying off my literary indulgences, i wondered why library cards were even necessary in our modern age. shouldn't all that shit be in the computer? if i give you my driver's license, shouldn't that suffice? i mean, even blockbuster doesn't make you carry a card around anymore. the library system can find out which magazine issues i failed to return four years ago but it can't let me borrow items without making me pay for another card? i smell a rat.

actually, i like having a physical library card. it's nostalgic i guess. mine is shiny blue and totally cooler than yours. library cards have definitely moved up in the design world over the past few years. it occurs to me that maybe library cards are made to be lost. this way, libraries can charge you a small re-card fee in order to fund their projects -- while making you feel like an idiot. which is a small sacrifice for a noble cause i guess. imagine the millions of dollars lost if library cards were to suddenly become a thing of the past.

i wonder if anyone has ever tattooed their library card bar code on themselves. that would seem to be convenient, and quite prudent. well, until you moved i guess. bar code tattoos are stupid. unless you were the among the first dozen people to get them. then you're cool, but you just so happen to resemble stupidity.

i feel like librarians should be tipped, or at least they could put out a change jar near the reading stations. i just made $130 (even after having 8% taken out) from my change jar, and that's just from one person over six months. loose change could probably provide the funding for new schools, classrooms, and healthy lunches for our children. "leave no couch cushion unturned." oh wait, this idea has already been done by those kids who go around your neighborhood collecting pennies in boxes. and i guess, bums know about the financial powers of accumulating coins too.

the other thing i question about the library is this dewey decimal system thing. it's just confusing. and outdated don't you think? nobody learns the dewey decimal system anymore. i hear that some libraries are re-organizing their books to feel more like bookstores. i assume this means they'll do away with the dewey decimal system too. good riddance. if i want to find all of carl sagan's books, it should all right there where i need it. not one in the 600.2s and another in the 530.3s. it's inefficient. or maybe, too efficient to be useful. "down with dewey" either way.

and why did they stop stamping the return dates in your library books? i can't be responsible enough to remember when my items are due unless the return date is attached to each individual item. how old do you think i am? this could actually just be another ploy to make more money. hum. i've suddenly gained new clarity on the way libraries work. free education my ass.