# I'm heading back to the Universal Library. Put in your orders now! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 8, 2011, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-heading-back-to-the-universal-library-put-in-your-orders-now/577694 "2011-04-08T18:07:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-heading-back-to-the-universal-library-put-in-your-orders-now/577694/41 "2011-04-11T20:21:35Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Null request. Not even the UL has a copy of\* A Dance With Dragons\*. 😃 Sure it does. It’s from the world where you, **silenus** , stood over Martin with an axe till he finished it. Hence the prison term Silenus-Prime is serving. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Doctor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-heading-back-to-the-universal-library-put-in-your-orders-now/577694/42 "2011-04-11T20:22:54Z")
I’d ask for the complete Doctor Who DVD set, but I think it is still in production (Season 2,194 starring the 730th Doctor). Plus, I’m afraid that you don’t have a large enough cargo carrier to get all 30,715 DVDs back here. Tell you what. Why don’t you just get me Seasons 200-205. She has to be the sexiest Doctor ever. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-heading-back-to-the-universal-library-put-in-your-orders-now/577694/43 "2011-04-11T20:25:21Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > According to the catalog, they have it, though no one’s actually checked in a while. It’s in the Cthulhu wing, into which the patrons may enter if they wish, but only after bringing their accounts fully up to date. But once you’re in you’re on your own; not only is the staff reluctant to enter, but applicants are asked if they are willing to work inside it, and saying yes results in not being hired. Wait a second - someone has to have placed the book in the wing. And when they’re checked out, one assumes these books are returned - do patrons re-shelve them themselves? Most librarians I know frown on that. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-heading-back-to-the-universal-library-put-in-your-orders-now/577694/44 "2011-04-11T20:28:16Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > Wait a second - someone has to have placed the book in the wing. And when they’re checked out, one assumes these books are returned - do patrons re-shelve them themselves? Most librarians I know frown on that. I would like you to think this through. Put yourself in the librarian’s place. Patron approaches your desk with a book from the Cthulhu wing. Do you insist on the letter of the law, or do you do whatever the hell it takes to get both book and patron away from you? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-heading-back-to-the-universal-library-put-in-your-orders-now/577694/45 "2011-04-11T20:31:25Z")
Oh - and as for my request: The complete works of George Orwell post-1950, please. Particularly the account of his travels in America while he convalesced from his TB treatment. (BTW, could you also set the buggy for a time-hop and drop off a nice big package of streptomycin in 1950? Or whatever the modern preferred treatment is. Thanks!) ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-heading-back-to-the-universal-library-put-in-your-orders-now/577694/46 "2011-04-11T20:34:44Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I would like you to think this through. Put yourself in the librarian’s place. > > Patron approaches your desk with a book from the Cthulhu wing. Do you insist on the letter of the law, or do you do whatever the hell it takes to get both book and patron away from you? I am going to be _especially_ firm on the letter of the law in this case. What do you expect happens if these dread books of unholy and ancient lore are just tossed together on a shelf at random? Better to just drop nuclear fuel rods in the corner pile - you’ll suffer less pain, and at least you’ll be assured of actually dying at the end. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-heading-back-to-the-universal-library-put-in-your-orders-now/577694/47 "2011-04-11T20:37:21Z")
I’ll request a complete copy of “Kubla Khan” (Newspaper account about an insurance salesman from Porlock being chased up a tree by wild dogs optional). ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-heading-back-to-the-universal-library-put-in-your-orders-now/577694/48 "2011-04-11T20:38:27Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > Wait a second - someone has to have placed the book in the wing. And when they’re checked out, one assumes these books are returned - do patrons re-shelve them themselves? Most librarians I know frown on that. That’s what interns are for. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-heading-back-to-the-universal-library-put-in-your-orders-now/577694/49 "2011-04-11T20:39:27Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > Oh - and as for my request: The complete works of George Orwell post-1950, please. Particularly the account of his travels in America while he convalesced from his TB treatment. (BTW, could you also set the buggy for a time-hop and drop off a nice big package of streptomycin in 1950? Or whatever the modern preferred treatment is. Thanks!) Yes, but it won’t matter from your point of view. If I go to your real past, then something will always prevent him from getting the meds. Any past in which he gets the appropriate meds is not the past of the now you are living in; it’s an alternate past. And even if I lent you the buggy and you dropped Mr. O. the meds he needs, and then you deliberately went forward to the appropriate future from that point, you’d find another **Mr. Excellent** living there. The only way to make that work is to scan the multiverse for the worlds in which history unfolded as you prefer, and said event did NOT lead to any major changes in your personal history, and then find a cusp in which your alternate is died violently and mysteriously and with no body being found, and then insert yourself after his disappearance. Even with Mycroft Holmes running your continua-buggy, that’s just too much damn trouble. > [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > I am going to be _especially_ firm on the letter of the law in this case. What do you expect happens if these dread books of unholy and ancient lore are just tossed together on a shelf at random? Better to just drop nuclear fuel rods in the corner pile - you’ll suffer less pain, and at least you’ll be assured of actually dying at the end. Seriously, dude, the librarians responsible for the Cthulhu wing don’t care. The UL’s best and brightest do not get that gig. It’s where they send people who need to be removed from time & space. ---
**Author:** ![Odaran09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Odaran09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odaran09)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-heading-back-to-the-universal-library-put-in-your-orders-now/577694/50 "2011-04-12T01:05:01Z")
Hey if you don’t mind, could you pick up “The Man Behind Odaran: The Complete Unabriged and Unrated Biography”. I think it is in the Not Quite Dead Yet wing. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-heading-back-to-the-universal-library-put-in-your-orders-now/577694/51 "2011-04-12T01:13:51Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I would like you to think this through. Put yourself in the librarian’s place. > > Patron approaches your desk with a book from the Cthulhu wing. Do you insist on the letter of the law, or do you do whatever the hell it takes to get both book and patron away from you? I am a librarian, although not at the Universal Library, and this sort of thing is why we have library _assistants_. Or better still, pages/shelvers. Ah yes, the sweet young pages, some of them still in their teens…some of them, dare I say, still _virgins_. Bwa ha ha, BWA HA HA HA HAAAAA! Excuse me, I must have had…something caught in my throat. Where were we? Ah yes, the shelving of books is a task normally handed by lower level staff. Those of us with library degrees have…other duties…and don’t have time to trifle with such things. ---
**Author:** ![limegreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/82dd89/32.png) [@limegreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/limegreen)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-heading-back-to-the-universal-library-put-in-your-orders-now/577694/52 "2011-04-13T16:03:07Z")
Isn’t the Cthulhu wing where the monk---- er, the ape Librarian would hang out? He seems the right um, being for the job. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-heading-back-to-the-universal-library-put-in-your-orders-now/577694.md?page=2)