# Ask the Librarian **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 3, 2010, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-librarian/552495 "2010-09-03T15:13:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2010, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-librarian/552495/141 "2010-09-10T15:49:14Z")
I love the lightbulbs in the Jefferson Building. It was one of the first buildings in the area to get them, since for obvious reasons libraries were all _about_ not using fire as soon as possible, but they’re all exposed bulbs because, I mean, you wanted people to see your fancy electric lightbulbs! Very nice free tour, by the way. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2010, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-librarian/552495/142 "2010-09-10T16:07:21Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > > [@Floater](#): > > > > Call it a de facto national library then, because it serves as one. > > Yes, but it does not operate at all in the same way that a true national library does. The average researcher may never know the difference, of course. There are two ways that the Library of Congress differs from the usual national library: (1) Its primary purpose is to serve the Congress, and it belongs to the legislative rather than the executive branch of the federal government as a result. (2) It shares the role of national library with the National Agricultural Library and the National Library of Medicine – and as a result its holdings in those subject areas are a lot smaller than they would be if it were the only national library in the U.S. However, it does regard itself as a national library as well as an adjunct to the Congress: I know, because I’ve heard senior administrators at LC say so. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-librarian/552495/143 "2010-09-10T16:10:41Z")
I don’t believe it’s still the case, but back when I was in library school the most important person in the government to visit Iran in however many years was the Librarian of Congress. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2010, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-librarian/552495/144 "2010-09-10T16:14:46Z")
There is also a Senate Library located in the Capitol annex that works in conjunction with the LoC. Unlike the LoC they’re not open to the public; the facility is about the size of the departmental faculty offices for a mid-sized university and consists of several librarians and a closed-stacks special library that has pretty much every biography of anybody who has served in the senate or books written by same and senate reports. They’re the go-to folks when a senator needs something. Our jaws dropped in envy when we asked about the budget and they said “If a senator asks for it- whether it’s a book on tax reform or a novel- we get it as soon as possible and tell them to bill it to the senate and there’s never been an issue; we can usually get it and catalog it within 24 hours.” Oy, if only… I don’t know if the House of Reps has a similar facility. I did ask if the Senate library buys copies of all books by or about Reps and they said “No, only the biggies… there’s just too damned many people who’ve served in the House over the last 200 years for us to give shelf space to them”. What most surprised me was the librarian who had a “W: the Wanker” sign openly displayed on her desk. That was gutsy with a serious slant towards stupid. (This was about 2006.) ---
**Author:** ![nashiitashii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7c8e57/32.png) [@nashiitashii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nashiitashii)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-librarian/552495/145 "2010-09-11T14:20:39Z")
> [@Gukumatz](#): > > Who are, and who should, fund American libraries? This one was answered by others, but generally libraries are funded either at a county or a city level, with other occasional funding coming at the state and national level. Mainly, it’s paid for by a percentage of the millage rate taxes, and some governmental entities have a separate millage rate that is specifically put aside for their libraries. Libraries are available to the public regardless of social or economic status, and it’s used by the haves and the have-nots, so it is something that _should_ be publicly funded, IMO. In the past few years, I have seen public libraries not only provide traditional library services, but by adding in access to the internet, a lot of social and governmental services are leaning on public libraries as an outlet for _their_ clients to register for services. In the county I used to work for, this generally meant that the office they were sent from said “go to the library; they’ll show you what to do” without any further instruction, so we did often have to be trained on what the governmental websites provided and how to navigate them, as we were showing people on a regular basis how to sign up for things like unemployment, food stamps, immigration services, passports and other online-only forms. > [@](#): > > Do you have an e-book catalogue to accomodate modern conveniences? If so, what’s your lending policy? In the public library in which I used to work, we had a number of e-books available to anyone with a library card as long as they signed up at the branch for Netlibrary. After that, they had more or less unfettered access to the e-books and audiobooks that we had through the subscription to Netlibrary. Very few people actually used it. > [@](#): > > Are librarians required to be more computer-savvy now? How’s the education with regards to technology? Oh, definitely. I do more computer-related troubleshooting in the library jobs that I’ve had than in any of the other jobs I have held, which included working in technology-based companies. Often enough, you are your own IT department or are the back-up IT department. > [@](#): > > How big a role does politics play in your book-buying? How well-maintained are your less-than-regular fiction sections, like fantasy and sci-fi? Do you stock books in other languages? This varies really heavily from library system to library system, and is based on two things. **Justin\_Bailey** mentioned the first one, which is that the person doing collection development may have absolutely no interest or actively dislike the genre, and thus does not regularly add to the collection or do research for non-“standard” fiction genres. The other has to do with collection development policies (de facto and de jure standards come into play on this one); sometimes there are rules written in or practices followed that will look at the circulation of certain genres as a measure for what’s popular and needs to be ordered in larger abundance. There is also the issue of budget, which may be small and swing in favor of ordering 20 copies of the latest James Patterson novel. It all depends on who’s handling the ordering, what rules they’re required to follow, what areas of the collection desperately need to be updated and how much money they have at their disposal. If it’s a choice between updating the nonfiction areas that are heavily used for school projects and buying a larger sci-fi collection, the nonfiction often wins. > [@iftheresaway](#): > > How do I impress a librarian? I don’t want to date them or anything (I’m happily married), but my library has several really cool librarians/ assistants (and one extremely cranky dude). I’m always hoping they’ll look at the books I check out and want to be my friend based on my awesome book-selecting prowess. > > Also, how do librarians feel about inter-library loan? I worry that it’s a bunch of extra work and cost and feel guilty any time I order something through ILL. I don’t think there’s a standard rule, but being relaxed, easygoing and friendly during transactions helps. I do remember a handful of patrons from my last job who were among my “favorites” because I could have a nice chat with them and occasionally recommend good books and materials. I generally never commented on their materials unless it was something that I had read or seen before and was giving a positive recommendation about, but I’d usually reserve that for those who seemed to be comfortable with that level of friendliness and were “regulars”. > [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > I use my library by placing a lot of holds online and then stopping by once or twice a week to pick up all the loot that’s been pulled for me. Do you think that’s annoying to my librarians? > > I feel like I must be running them ragged, so I leave them store-bought sweets around Christmastime (anonymously). Holds are only a pain under a few circumstances: 1. You never pick up your holds 2. You place more holds than you can pick up, and then complain about not being able to take them all home. 3. You place the hold, then try to pick them up after the holds expire; when you get there and are told as such, you complain that seven days is not long enough of a time and you want your movies/books/cds NOW, damnit! 4. You ask every single time you come in (every day) what position you’re in for [popular movie that just came out], and huff and puff about the fact that there are still 70-something people in front of you. If you ask to get bumped further up the line, it’s even more annoying. Caveat: Most people don’t engage in this behavior, but I had about 20 regulars who were bad about at least two or three of the things above on a regular basis. As for leaving sweets for the librarians, our unofficial policy when we got food from people whom we did not work with was to throw it out. The only exceptions to this were volunteers, former coworkers and family members of staff. > [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > Do you get enough time to read? > > When new books are ordered, can you get first crack at them? > > My daughter is going to volunteer at our local library. Do they ever, you know, keep volunteers and start paying them? 🙂 For the first two, I don’t recall ever having time to read on the job, but when books were ordered, we could look up that they were ordered and put ourselves on the holds list before it got onto the OPAC. For the last one, your daughter has a better chance at getting hired if there’s an opening she’s qualified for in the future. The major reason why is because whoever’s doing the hiring knows that they have someone who is already in the system who can vouch for your daughter’s work, and she’s already shown a willingness to do the job. In many cases, by being a volunteer, she’s also partially trained. > [@apollonia](#): > > As an early-20s woman who really loves kids’ and YA lit, do librarians ever look askance or look down on people who are browsing in the “wrong” section? > _\_ > Also, what happens when a patron encounters a book that’s been ripped or torn up? If the patron brings it to the desk, will you assume that he or she did it? And what do you do about nutjobs who WRITE in the books or “edit” them according to their own person weird ideas? Lots of people read outside of their age level, and part of that is because there’s good fiction in children’s, YA and adult areas in many libraries. Most libraries that I’ve encountered don’t restrict who has access because it’s too hard to tell who may or may not be a parent or an older sibling, and in the case of younger kids in the adult section, it’s the parent’s responsibility to restrict their child’s reading if they choose to do so. There’s no hard and fast rule for who’s old enough or mature enough to handle adult lit, so it’s not generally policed. > [@Superhal](#): > > Why does every librarian spend 90% of every conversation telling you how busy they are and nobody is helping them and how much work they have to do and how nobody appreciates them? I don’t believe I’ve ever actually had that conversation with someone; I have, however, had to inform people who cut the line or interrupt me while I am helping someone else that I am already helping another patron, so they need to wait their turn. This was how I handled it even if “it’s just a quick question”, because 90% of the time, it is nowhere near a quick question and is something that they need to wait their turn to ask. If it’s a “where’s the bathroom?” type question, we have a security guard who’s more than happy to answer that question if the librarians get busy on the floor and it can’t wait. > [@Captain\_Midnight](#): > > I think I would of enjoyed being a librarian because it seems like a very low stress position. Not stress free (see questions below), but a job where I do not have to sell anything. I would have to deal with the general public, but by and large, anyone who uses the library are usually more intellegent and less flappy than those who don’t. I would love the quiet. This varies really heavily from area to area. The public library that I used to work in was only quiet if the internet was down, and I wouldn’t say that I had a group of patrons who were more intelligent or less flappy than those I dealt with when I was in retail. With the increased access to the internet and the availability of DVDs in the library, it’s less a place to study and do research and more of a “general access point” for those who do not have the money or do not want to spend their money on internet at home or the latest DVD. > [@](#): > > It seems like there is a lot of education required for a position that is usually not a high paying job, and a job that tends to get cut as the city/county is losing funds. Probably some type of librarians do quite well, medical librarians and the like. It depends on the area you’re working in. Public librarians and school librarians tend to make less, but there is often room to work your way up into higher positions. Medical, business and legal librarians tend to make more, but the stresses of the job are higher and all three of those often require specialized knowledge in those fields; when I was looking for jobs, legal librarian positions required a JD and an MLS/MLIS. > [@](#): > > Do you ever get “bums”? Homeless looking people coming in and sleeping? > > Do people ever come in there to escape the elements? The library is actually a great place to loiter. It’s air conditioned, has a bathroom and I can read books for free. Yes to both. However, the undomiciled patrons were usually pretty good about following the rules because they knew that pissing off the librarians and the security guard meant getting trespassed from the branch for a year. That’s a year of not being able to use a conveniently located, air conditioned building with internet access, vending machines and a bathroom. The most fascinating part of the “homeless” phenomenon at the old library was their use of MySpace and email to contact their other homeless friends and meet up. It wasn’t odd, but it definitely took the place of more old-fashioned ways of communicating with people who didn’t stick around in one place too long. > [@](#): > > Do you get a lot of kids in the afternoons after school? Are they disruptive? Do you feel like a baby sitter sometimes? Yes, we did get a lot of kids in the afternoons after school; it depended upon which branch you were at and how close it was to a school or bus stop, but generally the latchkey kids would come and hang out and use the internet or do their homework at the library. Some parents would bring their kids in after school to do work, but generally I saw more kids come in on their own. > [@](#): > > How many books get stolen a year? How long is a book missing until someone calls the authorities? At the old library, we had a ton of books that were stolen or never returned. We used RFID tags for security, and every now and then I’d find the tags ripped out of the books and strewn along the floor or on the shelves while shelf reading. More often than not, people were stealing things like the bible and self-help books, or were breaking into the DVD cases to steal the DVDs. Since it was a really “open policy” library system, there was a very loose set of poorly enforced rules when things went missing or were not returned. I don’t believe that we ever sent anyone to collections for unpaid bills, and we had people who owed hundreds of dollars’ worth of materials. > [@](#): > > Do you still have encyclopedias? Does World Book make them anymore? (I loved World Book.) Yes, and most libraries still carry them. They get used more for elementary school projects than anything else, but they’re still readily and widely available. Check the 031 section of your local library, and you’ll find them there. > [@](#): > > Do gay men ever cruise for sex in your bathrooms? It seems that libraries everywhere are prone to this, because of the free availability of the bathroom, with it usually being very clean. My college library bathroom was a cruising spot for many years! As others have said, MySpace tends to take the place of traditional “cruising spots” these days; however, neither library that I’ve worked in had a large enough openly gay population for this to have ever become a phenomenon. There was, however, a cruising spot not terribly far from the library in the evenings that was partially run by Craigslist and MySpace postings. > [@](#): > > If you have internet access, what rules besides “NO PORN” do you have? In the public library, we didn’t want to see nudity on our computers, and there were filters on the children’s computers, which were located in a different part of the library than the research computers and the general internet access computers. We also blocked downloading onto any of the computers, and would occasionally monitor what people were viewing if they were behaving suspiciously. > [@Ruken](#): > > > [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > > > That appears to be an interlibrary loan program for getting books from outside the system. Those tend to be pricey and $3 is actually on the cheap side. > > Unfortunately the entire “system” has ~500,000 books, very few of which are on my reading list. I suppose there’s not much to be done about it; funding is extremely tight now, as it is most places, and libraries aren’t a huge funding priority. I’m assuming too large an ILL network becomes cumbersome, but I wish ours were larger. > > It’s both funny and sad to search for authors to see what they [do](http://aries.jmrl.org/search~S9?/abanks%2C+ian/abanks+ian/-3%2C0%2C0%2CB/exact&FF=abanks+iain+1954&1%2C6%2C/indexsort=-) and [don’t](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks#Bibliography) have. Maybe we have a librarian who “hates the stuff” too. Or maybe I’m just too rural for much selection. I’m not sure what area our local library system encompasses, but it’s more than one county. > > Do you know how many books are in your entire ILL network? Honestly, I couldn’t tell you how many books that were in our ILL network, but we were also members of OCLC’s Worldcat, which has thousands of member libraries worldwide. Generally, we’d try to get the items that we didn’t have from in-state sources before we started putting in requests for out-of-state ILLs, but sometimes nobody would own the title because it was obscure, out of print, or just really, really old. > [@Captain\_Midnight](#): > > I know it has been mentioned, but if you have extra books laying around and want to give them to a library, will they readily accept them? Libraries often take donations, but may not actually keep them to add to the collection. The public library I worked in would take donations, but we’d weed through them to remove the horrifically out-of-date encyclopedias, textbooks from 1968, and items that had been damaged by smoke/water/food/bugs before we’d even consider looking through them for potential additions to the collection. The rule of thumb appeared to be that, if there was a need for the book (ex: we owned X copies of it, but Y copies are missing/stolen), we’d add in the donation if it was in excellent or like new condition. Most of the remaining books would be resold, and profits would go toward adding to the collections. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-librarian/552495/146 "2010-09-13T22:27:36Z")
oldest overdue book returned? ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-librarian/552495/147 "2010-09-13T22:33:11Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > oldest overdue book returned? The system automatically purges any book that’s been checked out for more than five years, but a few years ago we did receive a book in the book drop with library labels that were last used in the late 70s/early 80s. So we’ll go with 25 years. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-librarian/552495/148 "2010-09-13T23:57:32Z")
> [@nashiitashii](#): > > > [@Gukumatz](#): > > > > Who are, and who should, fund American libraries? > > This one was answered by others, but generally libraries are funded either at a county or a city level, with other occasional funding coming at the state and national level. Mainly, it’s paid for by a percentage of the millage rate taxes, and some governmental entities have a separate millage rate that is specifically put aside for their libraries. Libraries are available to the public regardless of social or economic status, and it’s used by the haves and the have-nots, so it is something that _should_ be publicly funded, IMO. Question for you and **Justin** : what would you think of a public library system that charges its users for an annual membership? I ask because I live in one such jurisdiction–our public library charges adult users $15 a year for a card. It’s not much in the grand scheme, and I sure get my money’s worth out of it, but the principle of charging a taxpayer for a card bothers me. I never had to pay for a library card when I lived in Ontario; I don’t like the idea that here in Alberta, I have to pay an annual fee (no matter how small) to borrow materials from the public library. I should add that we do have a municipal election coming up, and I intend to bring up the question of annual library card fees with candidates. For our purposes here, I’m just interested in what you public librarians think of the practice. Next question: what happens when borrowed materials are lost or destroyed? I’m sure the borrower who lost them must pay for them somehow, but how would the cost be assessed? Would it be the retail value, the retail value plus the fine, all of the above plus a service charge? What if the materials are out of print–what happens then? ---
**Author:** ![ThisSpaceForRent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thisspaceforrent/32/345_2.png) [@ThisSpaceForRent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisSpaceForRent)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2010, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-librarian/552495/149 "2010-09-14T03:10:28Z")
My golly, Don’t mean to threadjack a threadjacking…:dubious: I came here to say THANKS!!! I enjoy libraries! And I appreciate what you do Justin! …continue threadjacking as needed…:o tsfr ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-librarian/552495/150 "2010-09-15T16:43:27Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > Question for you and **Justin** : what would you think of a public library system that charges its users for an annual membership? While I think any kind of membership fee should be unnecessary, sometimes its needed to help fund the library. But before it ever gets to that point, a library should be looking at a variety of other moneymaking ideas. So while I wouldn’t say never, I think it should be a last ditch effort when the only other outcome is the complete closing of the library. > [@](#): > > Next question: what happens when borrowed materials are lost or destroyed? I’m sure the borrower who lost them must pay for them somehow, but how would the cost be assessed? Would it be the retail value, the retail value plus the fine, all of the above plus a service charge? What if the materials are out of print–what happens then? That mostly depends on the library. In my library, the borrower is charged the original purchase price plus a $5 processing fee. So say they destroy a hardcover of The Da Vinci Code, which was $29.99 I believe, they’d pay that as opposed to the $8 the paperback is currently selling for. A late fine and a bill for replacement would never be charged for the same book. It’s one or the other. As for the material being out of print, that wouldn’t factor into it. I don’t actually get the money to rebuy the book per se. All fines (even replacement bills) go into the general materials fund. If another copy of the item needs to be purchased, it will. Otherwise, we’ll make do with one less copy, or in some cases, no copies. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-librarian/552495.md?page=7)