Forget about reading a book over the long Thanksgiving weekend

  • By Mike Dewey
  • November 18, 2010
  • 259
                        
Do you remember those vending machines that, once you'd contributed your quarter, would drop a plastic cup into a slot, funnel ice into it and then pour in whatever soft drink you'd selected? Did whatever happened to me all the time ever happen to you? The cup would fail to drop and the ice and the liquid would splash all over the floor, leaving you with sticky wet shoes and no beverage to enjoy. I'd feel so stupid, so tricked, so violated ... and, of course, when you pushed the button that promised the return of your coin, the vending machine just laughed in your face. That, I've come to learn, is the way of the world. Expect nothing, I've come to realize, and you'll never be disappointed. That lesson was driven home again today. After five and a half decades on this planet, including the last 10 years in the American South, you'd think that nothing could surprise me, that nothing could elicit in me an anger so profound that I was tempted toward violence. But you'd be wrong ... because I've always trusted libraries. And today, that faith was shattered. Libraries are the embodiment of simple trust, not like banks, which charge usurious penalties for daring to ask for a loan and, with little prodding, will foreclose on an innocent person in dire straits with the speed of a shark chomping into a swimmer's torso. Blood in the water equals a bottom line in the red. But librarians aren't predatory monsters. They're kind. They're helpful. They're polite. They're smart. And, as it turns out, utterly unable to perform their jobs when the computer decides that no one can check out a book. Allow me a quick tangent. My wife, much to her credit, is a dedicated follower of gizmos. She adores her digital camera, her iPod, her Kindle, her cell phone, her laptop. She is forever seeking newer and better ways to complicate what to me are simple things. If I want to listen to music, I simply crank up the stereo. If I want to call a friend, I pick up the telephone. As we drove back from Ohio last weekend, she decided to see if the GPS function on her mobile phone worked ... this, despite the fact that we were on familiar roads, three hours west of our home, and that I was behind the wheel. I could have driven it in my sleep. Nonetheless, my wife was so pleased to hear a mechanical voice, issuing from that little machine, telling me to take a turn I'd taken dozens of times before. "See?" she said. "It works." I didn't bother to remind her that when I pulled off into a rest area so that we could use the facilities and stretch our legs, that very intelligent machine had no idea how to get back on the interstate. OK, then, we've all seen "2001" and we know all about HAL and how he wouldn't open the pod bay door. That's classic Kubrick and sci-fi visionary stuff, but if you wanted to check out that DVD at the library today, you would have been as out of luck as Dave Bowman, the astronaut whose re-entry into the spaceship was denied my a bunch of transistors and wires. Nothing much has changed. Machines are unreliable and we're getting closer and closer to "Fail-Safe" all the time ... and if you don't know that movie, see it soon. Follow it up with "Dr. Strangelove." Makes a scary/funny double-feature. I suspected the library was in trouble when I couldn't find a place to park. That never happens. I was wary when I saw a hand-printed sign on the door that said patrons had to limit themselves to five books because of problems with the new computer system. I become convinced of the magnitude of the problem when I joined a line six deep and heard snippets of somber admissions of guilt, as in "Your name doesn't appear in our records" and "That book isn't shown in our collection." One vignette captured my attention. A mother was attempting to extend the loan of a book her daughter hadn't quite finished and a report was due the next day. All she wanted was 24 hours. "I'm sorry, ma'am," the harried lady behind the counter said. "The computer won't allow it." At last, my turn came. Each of the five books I'd selected turned out "not to be shown in our collection." I smiled. "What are the odds?" I asked facetiously. "Must be my eclectic taste." I grew up in libraries. Checking out a book was a rite of passage. Librarians understood the solemnity of trading in a children's card for an adult's. There was continuity, appreciation and, most of all, trust. They'd stamp a card with due date on it and slide it into a pocket inside the back cover. And then you could take it home, knowing you had a strict time limit, one that you did your best not to violate. I think I read somewhere that Benjamin Franklin established the first library in the United States. "Hey, Ben," I'd say to him today, after having driven back to the house empty-handed. "You're a smart dude. When is a library like a malfunctioning pop machine?" Mike Dewey can be emailed at CarolinamikeD@aol.com or snail-mailed at 6211 Cardinal Drive, New Bern, NC 28560.


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