I Had Your Book, But...

[katekintailbc]

I love seeing the different kinds of books people put on hold at the library. I once had the same person put on hold a book about cool science experiments to do at home and another book about making a living will--I am hoping the two didn't have to do with each other. Sometimes I'm even jealous and wish I could keep books to read myself instead of sending them out to the people who put them on hold. Sometimes, if someone's cancelled a hold, I'll even take a poor book home with me so it doesn't feel the sting of rejection from that cancellation (okay, I've only done this a couple of times... with books I actually wanted to read, not just because I felt sorry for the little guys).

A few times I've processed holds (picked the books of the shelves, scanned them into the system, and tagged them to send them on their way) for people I actually know in real life. This was the first time I'd ever had a book on my list from the beginning that I knew was for a friend.

On Friday night, melydia mentioned to me that she had just put Reckless on hold. I earread this whole book and couldn't tell you a dang thing about it. Somehow, the entire thing played and finished and I don't remember listening to more than maybe 2 or 3 minutes of it. I just tuned the whole thing out. Anyway, an audiobook copy of Reckless appeared on my picklist the very next morning and I had a suspicion that it was destined to be hers. I stuck it on my cart along with the other three pages' worth of books.

When I went into the back room, I got to be at my favorite station for checking in books (yay! and, yes, I have a favorite. This scanner is the best--its sensitivity, its angle, etc.). One of the librarians was checking in book drop books at the computer next to the one I was at. I processed a handful of books and then got to Reckless. I said my prediction out loud: "CE!" which is the library I know she goes to. And, yep, it was CE all right. And I might have thrown my hands up in the air in victory. And I might have also exclaimed "YES!" loudly enough to make the librarian next to me laugh. He asked, "Wait, did you actually just guess where that was going?" I told him I was pretty sure it was a hold one of my best friends had put on it, because she'd just told me about it the night before. We checked the system and, yep, it was indeed going to her. He said I could just take it with me and give it to her, but I wouldn't be seeing her for another 6 or 7 days. He jokingly told me I was a terrible friend to not take it to her directly or see her for a week. But, hey, that's how it works here in Northern VA. It's an extremely small town with lots of neat coincidences like this all the time... but it's also so big that it takes hours to drive from one place to another. I told him I'd just take a photo of the book and taunt her with it. He thought that was a much more acceptable solution than holding onto it for a week until I saw her again.

So, I snapped a photo then sent the book on its way, off to CE, where a librarian will process it and stick it on the shelves for her to pick up. It was pretty neat that I got to be the one to pull it off the shelves for her, though. That's the first time I've ever processed a picklist book for a friend, knowing it was going to be hers from the beginning.

Comments

[discoverylover.livejournal.com]

That is really cool :D

[melydia.livejournal.com]

Yay! :D