Bookworming........

I've spent today being mostly pissed off and cross and it's all the fault of Bugville Library - well, actually it's the fault of the fuckwits at the County Council and their insistence on this idea of inclusivity for libraries and making them a 'positive place for all'. I don't have a problem with the sentiment. After all, if no-one goes to libraries, they'll be closed and sold off for redevelopment in an instant and poor old Carnegie will be spinning like a top in his grave but, for God's sake, just let me be able to find what I'm looking for.

There's a swanky new 'access centre'. That's fine - it's an on-line catalogue. Unfortunately, in a monumental bit a non-joined-up-ed-ness, it doesn't actually tell you where to find the book. Oh no. Instead of the old method of shelving fiction alphabetically according to author (which would be too simple), you now have several sections in which to search, depending on the SUBJECT of the book. This is all very well if you actually know the mindset of the person who decides which subject category the book fits into. If it's a paperback book you're after, they've got special round shelving, nominally alphabetical, but hopelessly badly filed AND put into subsets. I was looking for something by Karen Maitland. They've got 6 copies according to the catalogue. Couldn't find a one of them. Searched high and low. Crime. Nope. History. Nope. Saga. Nope. Fantasy. Nope. General fiction. Nope. Modern Novels. Nope. Went to the information point to speak to the librarian. She was very helpful and insisted on talking me through how to use the on-line catalogue (again)in a slightly patronising way, even though I'd told her that I'd already looked there and I knew she had six copies stashed way in the building somewhere. She huffed a bit and stomped off to search as well. The catalogue definitely stated 6 copies available, none out on loan. She couldn't find them either and admitted that she didn't actually have a clue about where they might be shelved, given the subject matter, which is a bit historical in a thrillery, fantasy sort of a way.

And this is how you get more people to join and use the library?

I came home with the new (non-fiction) David Starkey about Henry VIII instead, which isn't QUITE the same, but will certainly be slightly more educational and which I found completely by mistake in the Crime Thrillers section. It won't keep my mind off the seasickness tomorrow like the Karen Maitland would have, but it'll make the lorry drivers on the ferry think I'm dead clever. We are off to the Flatlands for the weekend with a vast shopping list for chums, our bikes and a pack of bacon.

Oh. And N has a new bike. She's called Betty and she folds up. But she's not Princess Pashley......and she never will be.