Genevieve's Mechanic

Just thought I would share my delight
I have just been rumaging through the classics
Video section of my local authority library.

lots of very early Hitchcock (due to him growing up locally )but also many of the Boulting bros titles, and joy of joy "School for Scoundrels" I had almost given up hope of it being repeated
my appetite wheted for the great Terry Thomas at his caddish best I think I will treat myself to borrowing
"those magnificent men" next week ,...and maybe a blank cassette will find its way into the second VCR
any way at £1.90 per week it may well be worth seeing what is in stock at your local library.

Gibbie

Good point GM. I just got a card at a library in a nearby city where their selection is better than the video rental.

Steve Crook

I have always been a fan of public libraries. They have often helped me find books that I couldn't find anywhere else. They do now offer records, tapes, videos, DVDs etc. but I still mainly use them for books. One public library near me even allows you to borrow paintings! Just the thing for your next dinner party.

But any organisation that will let me go in and ask for any book, no matter how rare or valuable, and then go to such trouble to help you find it, is worthy of praise.

If they don't have it in that library they'll check the lists (now all computerised of course) to see if any other library in the borough has it. If there's not a copy anywhere in the borough they'll ask for a small fee to do a wider search for it. As I'm in London they first check all the other public libraries in London. If none of them has it they expand the search to all public libraries in the country, including University libraries. If it's still not found they'll even check the British Library and various private libraries.

That's an amazing service

Sometimes, when I go into libraries, I see the librarian at the enquiries desk looking a bit bored so I like to set them a difficult puzzle. I ask "You know that famous book about the whale by Herman Melville? What does the word Moby in the title mean?" It seems like it should be an easy thing to look up - try it sometime. Before the internet it was almost impossible to find out, it's still not exactly easy.

I have used public libraries to find a lot of quite rare films books, privately published biographies, books films were based on and things like that.

All power to the librarians thumbs_u

Maybe it helps that my local librarian is a vision of blonde loveliness called Angela - the angel of the bookshelves [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif[/img]

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS