To the person who has the library book that I put on hold...

[transposable_element]

Return it, already! It was due yesterday!

Okay, I admit that I don't always return my books on time. In fact, I forgot to return some books before I went on vacation earlier this summer. This is only what I deserve, I suppose. Sigh.

Comments

[the_rck]

I feel bad-- Someone has a hold on one of the books that I returned last Sunday that somehow went missing. The library only has one copy, and I don't know if they'll replace it if it's gone.

But there were seven books we returned that never got checked in. If it was one or even two, I'd think we forgot to put it in the bag or that it fell out in the car, but seven! Five of them are mine, and two are my daughter's, so it's not even likely to be just me being spacy due to meds and pain.

I just feel really bad for whoever wanted that book. And also for me as I didn't finish it and planned to check it out again later so that I could.

I have talked to the library, but I have no idea what they're doing about it. It's a largish library with multiple branches. The books could be anywhere by now.

[transposable_element]

Oh, that's too bad! I wonder if the books got shelved without the return being recorded in the computer. That does happen sometimes. I hope that's what happened, because if so they ought to be able to find the books easily enough.

We have a very good check-in system at our local library: you put the book on a conveyer belt and the computer checks it in, and then you can have a receipt printed if you want. I always get the receipt and then keep it until I can confirm that the book is no longer listed in my library record, because there have been times when I know I returned a book and it got lost somewhere during the return process. This happened once when I was in grad school and had (for some reason) checked out a book on the account of one of my professors. Not good!

[the_rck]

I would love a system like that. Our library just has bins where people dump everything, and then, from time to time, staff empty the bins and take the stuff into a back room to be checked in.

For the first day, I just assumed that they had a bin of stuff they hadn't gotten to yet and that everything would be checked in soon. Sometimes, they don't get things checked in until the morning after they're actually returned.

I think that, if the books had just gotten shelved, they'd have found them by now. They've been pulling holds for me the last couple of days and doing that very promptly, and I'd expect that to come after checking the shelves for these books. All seven books are still listed as checked out to us in the online catalog, so none of them have been found yet. I emailed them about it on Tuesday and got a fairly prompt response.

I just hope they will let me check stuff out this weekend. They may not given that one of the missing books is overdue and can't be renewed due to having a hold on it.

The library does, over the course of a lifetime, allow each patron to claim three items as things they're sure they returned that they then don't have to pay for. I think I've had two of my three over the last thirty years, so I could conceivably end up having to pay for several of these.

[edenfalling]

That is a deeply impressive check-in service, and I wish my library had anything of the sort. Instead we just have bins behind the main counter, or drop-slots in the outside of the building for after-hours returns. *sigh*

[transposable_element]

Yes, it's a very spiffy system! It's Silicon Valley, so the libraries are relatively well-funded and very high tech, especially our local branch, which was recently rebuilt from the ground up. Luckily they still care about books, not just computers and wireless access.