Being married to a former Arlington County librarian has its perks. When we are looking for an obscure book, my wife works the databases of the region’s libraries like a master pianist. Within minutes she can locate a hard copy of anything we may be looking for. Often times the desired tome is in a library system other than our own but that’s easily taken care of with our wallet full library cards.
Whenever I am looking for something off the beaten track, as I was today, I am always curious to see which library system will have the books I seek. In the back of my mind I tend to file away who has each rare find as a sort of scorecard of the area’s libraries.
Experience has proven out that Arlington County has the best library system around, while traditionally DC has the worst. Hence my surprise at today’s scorecard results after our search for three out-of-print books on the Dutch Revolt.
DC – 3
Arlington – 0
Granted once we got to MLK Library, only two were on the shelf, even though they confirmed all three as being physically there when we called ahead. But still…Arlington had none of them? What’s up with that?
We got the third book out in Fairfax County. Which usually ends up being the pinch hitter in these situations seeing as how they supposedly have the largest collection in Virginia.
Originally published on July 6, 2005.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment