Zatera Ul

All right, I’ve given in. I will put in REQUESTS for library books, instead of hoping to actually go in and find them on the shelves. This big-city (metropolitan county) library system is overrated. It’s true that they have many more titles than a small town library. But, I can almost guarantee that any book that I want will be either perpetually checked out, or sitting in some other branch across town. I suspect that the actual number of books per capita is much smaller here than in a smaller library system. Our suburb has fifty or sixty thousand residents, and our library branch claims to have about 150,000 “items”. (Housed in 40,000 square feet–no wonder the place feels so empty!) We have over 100 shelf feet of books in our apartment for just the three of us. We frequently are unable to renew books, because someone else has requested them. Might as well live someplace quieter and use the interlibrary loan system.

(Same thing applies to post offices–number of physical branches per capita is much lower here.)