Brought the kids to the National Library (Central Branch) last Saturday afternoon, so that wifey can have some time to go to the Book Fair, not for herself (don't have that luxury anymore) but to scout materials for her school library which she was arm-twisted to take charge of last year. She did find some useful stuff, but was also disgusted at some sales staff trying to market reference books un-updated for more than a decade ...
Snowylass' idea of visiting the library is having daddy or mummy sit with her and read her the books she picked out.
Snowylad's idea of visiting the library is to find the most challenging books to pick out. His idea of challenging is that the books must be tightly shelved to defy his muscles for at least 10 seconds before budging.
When I first started bringing him to the library, he'd be satisfied after his conquest and leave the books on the floor. Now he has progressed to brandishing his conquests, walking around to see who witnessed his achievements. Thankfully, he's also learned to follow my instructions to put those books to the reshelving units.
So it was I had to do double-duty, reading a story to my daughter, while continuously scanning the surrounding to be aware of what my son is up to.
He's also quite friendly when he sees (younger) babies, and daring when he sees older kids playing horsie (it's that convertible seat in the children's section at Central branch NLB). I do worry that he has no idea that the rocking horse could rock onto his little toes.
Due to the June school holidays, we get double borrowing limits, so this trip was quite fruitful ... for the kids. I only managed to find a Kiasu Krossover 3 comic book for myself - I didn't even realise the Kopykat gang managed to produce one more volume - my time for scrouring bookshops have been sharply curtailed since becoming a father.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find that book when we got back. Searching my car ... calling up the place where I brought the kids for tea ... turned up nothing.
It would have been easily missed if it dropped from my tote-bag ... which was carrying 16 other books, all for the kids.
Finally called the NLB yesterday when I found the borrowing receipt. Using the item's call number, the staff was able to inform me that the book was "returned" to the library ... someone helpful found and did me a good deed? ... and borrowed out again ...
I keep replaying in my mind how I could have dropped it yesterday ... it was "impossible" ... I was only carrying the overstuffed bag of books, diapers, kids' jackets and water-bottles, carrying Snowylad who still knows no danger at the roads ... calling to Snowylass who keeps falling behind because she insisted on carrying the big book "There might be giants" and kept it open at the last read page ...
I ought to be thankful that the book was found and returned to the library ... though it means I have to find it again.
Still, I wondered at how quickly it was borrowed out. From personal experience, returned books can be notoriously tardy at being placed back at their shelves. Many times have I checked their availability at the library's website, only to find the books were still not shelved back.
I thought it could be possible that someone actually saw me drop the book in the library itself, but instead of informing me, preferred to bring it to the counter to have it checked-in and borrow it himself/herself.
I think though this feeling arose because I was feeling sore ... sore that the kids got their 16 books and I didn't even get my single ...
In all honesty, there was enough time after my losing it on Saturday afternoon for the book to be returned to the bookdrop, and then reshelved by the staff.
Gotta just hum to myself "Always look on the bright side of life ..."
Well, at least you didn't drop it elsewhere and only to realise it later, than you'd have to pay the price of the book. :X
ReplyDeleteShucks, speaking of the devil, I have an overdue book. #$@%
ReplyDeleteI've paid my share of dues to the library...
ReplyDelete1. too many overdue books
2. paid full price for a book I'd thought I'd lost, then later found. I still have it since I've paid for it and it's a pretty crappy book too.
Our dear library is hardly a paragon of efficiency. They would promise to help track books then never contact you ever again. Their website has the option on their feedback form to select whether you want a reply to your query/comment/suggestion but they never do, they never respond to your e-mails, their search catalogue is a challenge to use since it's boolen programming doesn't have a very high IQ, books located using their search catalogue are often not to be found on the shelves, I find myself helping the library reshelf books because I find books constantly wrongly reshelved eg. 915.27 in the 955.27 stack, and the photocopying at the library is the most expensive in Southeast Asia at 8 cents per copy (other than the indian uncle's copier at the M'sian high commission who charges 20 cents per copy but since it's usually only 1 or 2 pages, that's ok....
Er. about misplaced library books, actually, this is more the fault of the browsers than of the library staff. They do try to get them in the right place, but then, idiots who take the books out, browse it and then happily put it back into the first available slots. I have seen this many times, and I try to help by putting them back at the right place.
ReplyDeleteAgain when the books are not found in the shelves, even though in the catalogue, a lot of times, people took the book, flipped it and then put it back into the book bins or sometime, hide it until they could borrow it... then, you might not be able to find it.
I am not saying we have the most efficient library system, but then, it depends quite a lot on the users too.
shame shame SGporeans....!
ReplyDeleteThat's Singapore all right.
ReplyDeleteJust look at children's corner at Borders, especially on weekends.
What Singapore has to be proud of, I really don't know.
I am a regular financial contributor to NLB. In fact such is my contribution I believe my name must be on one of the foundation stones somewhere.
ReplyDeleteThe libraries could do with a better OPAC. bad decision to live with inferior products when they have the funds for better ones.
I'm not sure how you'd like the NLB OPAC to improve ...
ReplyDeleteThey tried rolling out a new J2EE version for it when the Central branch re-opened, but it was awful. Many, including moi, complained about it.
Shortly afterwards, they reverted to the CGI version, old, but better.
I use to work with libraries systems so I have seen quite a few OPACs. The library OPAC is basic at best, and lacking in advance search capabilities compared to the others that I have seen and used. An argument can be made that for a public library most users will not be using those features. However, our libraries are also positioned as research centres, they can certainly use something better.
ReplyDeleteThe NUS one is pretty good.
ReplyDeletemaybe the National Library is not a good place for me. I can never find what I want and even if I found it --90% are all reference books. That's probably the reason I have a library at home. And my parents are actually making a lot of noise......
ReplyDeleteI think that's what they tried to provide with the discarded J2EE OPAC, but it failed miserably for the most commonly used basic function.
ReplyDeleteI use the system mainly to check for availability of books from all branches, and making reservations.
It's not a very intelligent system, but part of the reason is because the information it has is not always on par. Good if you know the precise title, but not so good otherwise.
Have you tried the discarded J2EE OPAC they had before they rolled back?
Unfortunately (fortunately?) I did not. I hope its not a "hey, we can write a library system of our own" project which apparently failed. Didn't register on my radar at all, must be a period when I didn't use the OPACs.
ReplyDeleteYeah LJM, the NUS one is relatively good.
Yes it is, my friend Shank, an NUS undergrad, has more or less given me free reign to use his ID.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of our National Libraries. I nearly bashed up my laptop because the online catalogue returned crap on my search for Ernst & Young books.
ReplyDelete