DGDevin wrote:
HeyBub wrote:

Not wanting the conversation to degenerate into a poor relation to
the Monty Python Cheese Shop skit, I asked: "Okay, what DO you have?"

"We have hand puppets, video games, CD music, hardback best-sellers
(put your name on the list). We have art work to loan out, paperback
romances (leave two, take two), a few toys and lots of puzzles. Over
there are the computers where you can surf the net..."

****ers have completely abrogated their role as a repository of
knowledge! Scrape 'em off the face of the earth, I say.

An amusing if unconvincing yarn. My local library (a fine old
red-brick neo-classical building) is well-stocked with books
(including home improvement titles), and if I want something they
don't have they'll happily order it from another branch. They even
bought a new book I was interested in which I considered pretty good
service. They have a good CD collection too, lots of blues and jazz.
However if you can demonstrate that your local library no longer
carries books on history, science, art and so on and has just
best-sellers and romances, I'll be prepared to reconsider your
apocryphal tale.

The tale is not "apocryphal," it's "anecdotal," as anyone who's steeped in
the knowledge a classical library could provide would know.

Admittedly, I did exaggerate for the purpose of emphasis. The local library
I visited DID have lots of books. They had oodles of children's books, which
is a Good Thing (tm). They had a robust selection of classic fiction (Tom
Sawyer, Scarlet Letter, Moby Dick, etc.). A good section on DIY and other
areas of interest.

I'm in the book business (once removed) and it irritates me that a library
could have 25 copies of the latest Stephen King novel in inventory and zero
copies of Marquis Who's Who. [Did you know there's a huge business in
RENTING best sellers to libraries? (see "Brodart")]

Oh well.

Many years ago, I spent almost a day in that library researching an
interesting question. I discovered that the following people were not
qualified, by law, to teach in the public schools of my state:
* All living Nobel Prize winners.
* All living winners of the Field's Medal
* All living winners of the Pulitzer, Hugo, Edgar, Newberry, Booker, or
other well-known literary prize.
* All members of the Supreme Court and the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
* All members of my state's Congressional delegation.

Today, of course, I could conduct the same research faster and better via
the internet. So maybe libraries are merely morphing into something related,
but different (like "The March Of Dimes" did when Polio disappeared), and
keeping the same name.

I guess I really should keep up...