MIT sf library
Mar. 11th, 2008 05:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidI'd heard about it for years, and last month finally got around to joining MIT's science fiction library (like a regular library, but focused on the good stuff. Fsvo good stuff, of course ;-). It's in the student center, in a suite on the fourth floor, crammed with paper.
The surprising part for me is how low tech it is, given that it's at MIT. I mean, sure, it's a student-run group, but... MIT. Land of techies. I signed up, paying the fee for the year, and got a blue piece of paper as a library card. That means I can take out up to eight books at a time*. I'm glad it's not more than that, as it turns out, to save both my back and my hand. Checking books out involves finding one's page in the book of those with borrowing privileges (alphabetical order, so not that onerous), then writing in the date, one's initials, whether the book is paperback or hardcover, the title, and the author. Then whoever's on duty initials it as well. Returns involve another round of double initialing, then reshelving (while getting more books out, presumably. This is a great incentive to get a bunch of books by the same author.).
The room with the circulating library is jam-packed, paperbacks along the walls and hardcovers in the middle aisles. So far, I've had reasonably good luck finding books I want. Today was the first day I was stymied. I looked for any Nina Kiriki Hoffman, didn't find any under H or K, paperback or hardcover, and went to inquire. Strangely, while they have a number of her books, all but one of them aren't circulating (and presumably that one was out). I shall have to find a chunk of time to sit there and read. (The non-circulating material includes new books, large-print books, rare books, and periodicals, among others.)
* The only other time I remember having a library cards with borrowing limits was my second year in Israel, when I'd exhausted all my friends' collections of English books. Since I'm not an Israeli citizen, I couldn't get an Israeli library card**, but somehow I wangled one from the British Council, which was then near the Russian Compound, in a lovely old building with gardens in a walled yard, across the street from the Ethiopian Orthodox monastery (on the trip last spring, I was saddened to find that they'd moved). Anyway. The card cost me however much (30 NIS? 80 NIS? I wish I remembered.), and came with the right to borrow four books at a time, which felt incredibly limiting. I mean, there wasn't time to go there frequently, I was in school from 8:30 AM to 10 PM, with meal breaks, five days a week. But four books don't last long... It was a challenge that year. It makes eight books look that much better.
** Given the size of the country, I wonder whether they've got all the regular libraries in one big system?
The surprising part for me is how low tech it is, given that it's at MIT. I mean, sure, it's a student-run group, but... MIT. Land of techies. I signed up, paying the fee for the year, and got a blue piece of paper as a library card. That means I can take out up to eight books at a time*. I'm glad it's not more than that, as it turns out, to save both my back and my hand. Checking books out involves finding one's page in the book of those with borrowing privileges (alphabetical order, so not that onerous), then writing in the date, one's initials, whether the book is paperback or hardcover, the title, and the author. Then whoever's on duty initials it as well. Returns involve another round of double initialing, then reshelving (while getting more books out, presumably. This is a great incentive to get a bunch of books by the same author.).
The room with the circulating library is jam-packed, paperbacks along the walls and hardcovers in the middle aisles. So far, I've had reasonably good luck finding books I want. Today was the first day I was stymied. I looked for any Nina Kiriki Hoffman, didn't find any under H or K, paperback or hardcover, and went to inquire. Strangely, while they have a number of her books, all but one of them aren't circulating (and presumably that one was out). I shall have to find a chunk of time to sit there and read. (The non-circulating material includes new books, large-print books, rare books, and periodicals, among others.)
* The only other time I remember having a library cards with borrowing limits was my second year in Israel, when I'd exhausted all my friends' collections of English books. Since I'm not an Israeli citizen, I couldn't get an Israeli library card**, but somehow I wangled one from the British Council, which was then near the Russian Compound, in a lovely old building with gardens in a walled yard, across the street from the Ethiopian Orthodox monastery (on the trip last spring, I was saddened to find that they'd moved). Anyway. The card cost me however much (30 NIS? 80 NIS? I wish I remembered.), and came with the right to borrow four books at a time, which felt incredibly limiting. I mean, there wasn't time to go there frequently, I was in school from 8:30 AM to 10 PM, with meal breaks, five days a week. But four books don't last long... It was a challenge that year. It makes eight books look that much better.
** Given the size of the country, I wonder whether they've got all the regular libraries in one big system?
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 02:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 02:30 pm (UTC)related geek humor
Date: 2008-03-12 03:33 am (UTC)My officemate has inscribed this clipboard "SQL-injection-proof checkout list".
Re: related geek humor
Date: 2008-03-12 02:31 pm (UTC)(Er, assuming I understand that...)