The following post is part of a Seed Pod collaboration about libraries. Seed Pods are a SmallStack community project designed to help smaller publications lift each other up by publishing and cross-promoting around a common theme. We’re helping each other plant the seeds for growth!
The worst thing about belonging to more than one library is that it's all too easy to take a book back to the wrong one. I did that a few months ago, and the following conversation ensued.
Librarian at the returns desk: This book doesn't exist.
Me: I must be hallucinating.
Librarian: No, I mean it doesn't exist on our system.
Me: Does that mean I can keep it then? Oh hang on, I've just noticed: this comes from a different library. Oops!
I remember a Professor Branestawm story in which he borrows a book from Great Pagwell library. When it's time to return it, he can't find it, so he borrows the same book from Upper Pagwell library, and returns that to Great Pagwell. This process continues until he has borrowed the book from every Pagwell district. In the end, he invites all the librarians in the area to his house, I think to come clean (I can't be absolutely sure because it is a long time since I read it). As the librarians browse the bookshelves, each of them finds their own library's copy of the book. The Professor has "filed" them in different sections of his bookshelves. So, all is well in the end.
These days, of course, that could never happen. Books are barcoded to within an inch of their lives, and digitised systems mean that the library knows exactly who has what books and when they are due. It's all much more convenient and efficient of course, but I can't help feeling what a pity it is that an insane, madcap story such as the one just related could not be written these days. Not because it would be unbelievable, but because it would be inconceivable.Even imaginary tales require a certain degree of credibility.
You may be interested to know that the length of this post, excluding the title, subtitle and this blurb, is 300 words long. This is an example of short-form writing known as a trabble.
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Thanks for bringing some levity to my Friday afternoon with this post!
Our local library closed down during covid, so I was unable to return a few tomes of local history I'd borrowed. Lugging them into the brand new libraryplex, I was informed that these books had never existed - and would never exist. So, I have some lovely 19th century books on my shelf which I've been forced to own.