Library card

[celticdragonfly]

I got my library card renewed today!

Sounds like no big deal, but it was. I *love* my Fort Worth library card. It lets me use their website - and the FtW Library website is totally... (tries to think of a more family appropriate term than the one I use in my head)... my faithful servant. I request books from all over, they deliver them to the branch I like, I go pick them up at the desk. Considering that Jamie in a stroller can reach books from both sides, wandering through the stacks just does not work for me.

Anyway, I am not a Fort Worth resident, and didn't find out that the Saginaw library is not part of the Fort Worth system, like most of the other little towns around Fort Worth, until after we'd bought this house. So I had to spend several months checking out books at random from Saginaw's library and bringing them back to prove I was trustworthy, then get them to give me a TexShare card, then use that to get a nonresident (yet free) Fort Worth card.

So the website was no longer letting me renew, telling me it was expiring. Last week I went to try to renew. They wanted a new TexShare card, as that was also expired. I was worried I was going to have to start the whole process over again. I went back to the Saginaw library, and fortunately they were willing to renew my Saginaw card and give me a new TexShare card with no fuss. So today after lunch with selenite, I went back down to my preferred branch of the Fort Worth library and got my card renewed.

So, time for another orgy of book requesting. Bwahahaha. (Yes, I still have a whole SHELF full of books already checked out. So what?)

Hm, I'm about due for another mini-research-binge. Although I suppose the pile of Buffy books so I can try to understand the backstory for cadhla's Martin's Passage fics sorta counts. But I should find a more serious nonfiction subject to go after soon.

Comments

[hopeevey.livejournal.com]

Always good to read another library enthusiast :)

[joyeuse13.livejournal.com]

I recommend the book I'm reading right now, about Veronica Franco. Then you can rent Dangerous Beauty and compare them. :)

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Karl gave that one to me a while back.

I have Dangerous Beauty, and I'm very fond of it. Sadly, it's in VHS, or I'd take it and suggest it for one of the Wednesday night movie nights.

I *WANT* the green dress that Veronica's mother wears!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

If there's anything you want at the TCU library and you don't want to wait around for ILL to work, with a TexShare card you can apply for borrowing privileges. :) Non-student guests can come in 7:30-5:00 on M-F and all day Saturday (we reserve our busiest times for students and faculty).

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Right, I'll remember that. However, given how hard it is to manage Jamie in stacks, and that ILL *is* now available through the website, I'll probably be better off waiting a bit longer most of the time.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

You can also use some of our databases if you ever need to - there's a few terminals that non-students can use and we've got a special page with the databases whose contracts let us offer them to non-students... *rummage, rummage* here. :D If it's a slow time at the library (i.e., mornings not near midterms and finals), there's usually several guest terminals free, and it's fairly easy to park a stroller off to the side within arm's reach of you but away from graspable objects. :)

Mind you, we've got a big flight of Suicide Steps up to the entrance, so a stroller isn't the easiest thing to bring into the building to start with.

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

That sounds like it was a hassle. I really appreciate the way the library system here works now. I have a card from the local library that never needs renewing and is good at just about any library in the county, including a couple of the local colleges, and a sticker on that card that lets me take at books at most public libraries in the state. The only "renewing" that needs doing to any of it is that every so often they ask me to verify that I still live at the same address.

I grew up in a town where you had to pay for a library card at the local non-public library or go to the main branch of the county library that was a long drive away in a bad area. My parents didn't think much of that and instead chose to pay for non-resident cards for all of us at a neighboring community's library. When the state-wide system went into effect, it gave me great joy to drive myself over to that library that charged us for cards all those years and take out books for free.

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

People like you make librarians very, very happy.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

We do? I make them do all sorts of extra work in going and fetching my books for me and sending them to the other branches. I always *hope* that having higher numbers of books checked out will help them somehow, to offset the fact that no, I'm not a Fort Worth resident and therefore am not paying property taxes into their accounts.

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's not all the holds per se, but the gleeful attitude: "Books to read! More! Kittycat! Holds! Holds!" that's so great. Plus your clear love of the system.