Books Galore!

[susandennis]

My library - besides having one of the greatest buildings in the world - provides a fairly handy way to manage book lending. Except I never seem to get it quite right.

In the old days, you could telnet in to the library and put any book on hold. This was in the early 90's when I first moved here. It was space aged stuff then.

Today you can log onto their website and search for books and put them on hold and you can also maintain lists of books. They add new tools fairly often these days. Like now you can go to your hold list and postpone a book.

But, I still manage to, once in a while, like today... Get an unmanageable stack ready for pickup. I just got an email saying two more were ready. That makes 8 waiting for me. I cannot even carry 8 books all the way home. And, for sure, I can't read them in time to get them back before they are due. (And, you can't renew books that someone else is waiting for.)

I will finish the book I'm reading now tonight and I'll be ready for the next one. I always have a novel going. Sometimes I also have a non-fiction that I take on the bus.

I'm trying to noodle out a library system that will meet all my needs. I currently have 91 books on my list - these are books that I'm pretty sure I want to read but either they do not have a lot of people waiting for them and I'm not ready yet. My hold list has 15 that are not yet available and 8 that are ready now.

Today I'll go get those 8 and pick out a couple of novels and a couple of non fiction and then turn the others back in and put them back on my hold list for later.

Seems like there should be a better way but maybe I'm just too picky. At least I have plenty to read and the price is right.

Edit: There are, as I write this, two comments to this entry. Both are annonymous. All I'm seeing on this computer are a bunch of blank rectangles and a few words here and there. Usually this is in indication that I am missing a language install. Can anyone else read all the words?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

なんだかクラッシックな日本人男性の役が似合うロックミージシャン風の男性、今まで彼のことパンクロックのミューシャンだとばかり思っていたけど、実は歌舞伎界のプリンスらしい。
イギリス人や日本人の男性で好きなタイプって、someone who has both qualities of very classic and very modern.
普通の日本やアメリカで人気のスターって、一体どこが魅力的なのか、ちょっと理解に苦しむことがある。

[phornax.livejournal.com]

Lewis-san, is that you?

[(Anonymous)]

What? Are you talking about my Lulu?
Hey, he is mine, ya know.

[phornax.livejournal.com]

Susan, you may want to turn on your IP address tracking option for comments...this one's a wack-job.

[susandennis]

yeahbutt I get his (or hers???) IP address and then what do I do with it? I sure don't' want to turn off anonymous comments. If he goes nuts, I guess I'll dust off my delete key.

Thanks for noodling out the gist of what they say. Holey moley.

[susandennis]

Ha! I totally forgot about my friend, Lewis!

[phornax.livejournal.com]

The above comment reads roughly:

It is what, as if クラッシック the man of the ロックミージシャン wind where part of the Japanese man matches, until now it is ミューシャン of that thing パンクロック, however you thought, to tell the truth the prince of the Kabuki boundary it seems. With man of Briton and Japanese favorite type っ て, someone who has both qualities of very classic and very modern. Whether in normal Japan and America the star っ て of popularity, one somewhere is attractive, there are times when it has hard time just a little understanding.

weird

[joyoflj.livejournal.com]

i ran it through a translator and got this:


なんだかクラッシックな日本人男性の役が似合うロックミージシャン風の男性、今まで彼のことパンクロックのミューシャンだとばかり思っていたけど、実は歌舞伎界のプリンスらしい。
イギリス人や日本人の男性で好きなタイプって、someone who has both qualities of very classic and very modern.
普通の日本やアメリカで人気のスターって、一体どこが魅力的なのか、ちょっと理解に苦しむことがある。

[(Anonymous)]

そういえば、後藤久美子という、昔、国民的？美少女だった女性が、１０年くらい前、仕事で知り合った、当時人気のF１ドライバーのジャン・アレジと結婚したらしい。出合ったときは、彼にはすでに奥さんと３人の子供がいたけど、彼女に夢中で、家庭を放り出して、同棲していたみたい。彼女もかわいいけど、頭が空っぽのお人形さんだったけど、ふたりは、今、とってもすてきなカップルになっている。
素敵な国際結婚カップルのNo.１がこの人たち。もちろん、ジャン・アレジは今は何年か前に引退して、今は田舎でふたりで優雅にワインを作ったり、子供と遊んだりしているらしい。
でもね、シューマッハは私のタイプだけど、ジャン・アレジは私のタイプじゃないけど、
後藤久美子にしても、まだ２０才くらいで、何もわからなかったのと、彼がbillionaireで、ヨーロッパではとってもセレブなF1ドライバーだったから、とっても幸せそうに見えるのだと思う。彼と２０代の時に結婚した、元妻って、なんだか、とっても気の毒。

[phornax.livejournal.com]

The above comment reads roughly:

So, if you say, you call Kumiko Goto, former times, national? The woman who is the beauty girl, about 10 years ago, knew each other with work, when at that time you get married with John アレジ of the F 1 driver of popularity, forcing. When encountering, however already lady and 3 children were in him, with absorption, expelling home in her, living together, we would like to hurt. However she is lovely, however the head was doll of empty, the cover り, now, very has become the cute couple. No. of cute mixed marriage couple 1 these people. Of course, John アレジ now several years ago retiring, now with countryside makes the wine elegantly with the cover り, plays with the child it seems. Don't you think? so, but as for shoe Mach my type because as for John アレジ however there is no my type, to Kumiko Goto, unless with about still 20 years old, was recognized at all, he with billionaire, in Europe very セレブ was the F1 driver, you think that very happiness it is visible so. Him and you got married at the time of 20 generations, the original wife っ て, it is what, very unfortunate.

[phornax.livejournal.com]

Your stalkers are turning Japanese.

[(Anonymous)]

でもね、私ってかなり生意気な女だから、やっぱり、何かあっと驚くようなものを持っている人じゃないと、バランス的に難しいかもね～

[phornax.livejournal.com]

The above reads roughly:

Don't you think? so, therefore my っ て considerably the conceited woman, unless there is a person who has kind of those which after all, something oh with are surprised, whether it is difficult balance, don't you think??

[slinkr.livejournal.com]

The other comments appear to be written in Chinese.

I would love to see a public library system that worked like Netflix, where you could create a large queue of books you wanted to read without trying to reserve them all at once. Then you'd set some limits for what you could take out at one time (like one 7-day book and 2 three-week books) and the system would reserve books for you if they were available and you didn't have too many books out or reserved already. It would also be cool to be able to request books after they were moved out of 7-day loan mode. A 7-day unrenewable loan on a long novel or biography is kind of useless, but I'll probably forget that I wanted to read it by the time the library decides it's no longer new and starts lending it out for longer periods.

Of course, I have no expectation that my library will ever implement such a system because it would mainly serve adults who read a lot and are comfortable with technology and we're not exactly the library's most important constituency.

[phornax.livejournal.com]

Still, it sounds like a fun thing to code.

[susandennis]

That's EXACTLY what I want!!! Perfect. Excellent. I knew the Netflix model which is probably why I get so frustrated with the library's.

I should just be grateful that I've got what I've got.

[jimcarson.livejournal.com]

Ooh, the Netflix model is a cool idea. My library (KCLS) spent the last year upgrading their system to ... the same functionality they had before and they still need someone to beat them with a usability stick.

One new feature is an "unhold" option (for vacations) that preserves your spot in line. It requires some forethought in checking the incoming list, and they're not really good at the queue modeling once the books are in transit. I'd swear they know when our regular library day is and schedule the book to arrive late that evening just so it sits on the shelf, cavorting among my other newly-arrived holds.

[susandennis]

We just got that feature, too...

But, I had no idea that KCLS allowed cavorting! Radical.

[thalamic.livejournal.com]

Those Japanese comments weren't me, in case you are wondering.

[susandennis]

I wasn't before but now that you mention it... :)

[seattlejo.livejournal.com]

I love the SPL as Netflix idea. Right now I have 28 books out. It's overwealming.

[susandennis]

Holey crap! YOU are a whole branch!!! But, thanks, now I don't feel so bad.

[estis.livejournal.com]

かなり率直に私は日本エントリで驚いている。私は彼らがちょうど英語を読むことができるかどうか疑問に思う。