Guy walks into a library...
wants to use a computer. Does he have a library card? No, the guy sneers. He never comes to the library. Miss Information looks at him, looks around at the library he is presently standing in and wonders if she should alert the media. Realizing they’re probably still busy with Paris Hilton, she decides against it. Does he want to get a library card? Of course not.Undaunted, Miss Information recites the many reasons why it’s so great to have a library card. It’s free. It’s fast. You can sign out books, magazines, DVDs. You will win the lottery. Your hair will be shinier. And, most importantly, you will be able to use the computer for even longer. Yes! Instead of a visitor pass that gives you 30 minutes, you will be able to log on for an hour or more every day!
Guy is not convinced. He never comes to the library. (Why do people always say that like it’s something to be proud of?) He only needs the computer for a couple of minutes anyway.
Miss Information directs him to the 15 minute express terminals. You don’t need a card for those.
When she returns from her coffee break, the guy is back at the desk. Somebody gave him a visitor pass but it’s running out. He needs longer on the computer. Miss Information gently suggests, once again that his life would be so very much better with a library card.
Nah. He never comes to the library.
Miss Information realizing that this is a lost cause, gives him another visitor slip. At this rate, he'll end up with more computer time than a legitimately registered customer. Something about that just seems wrong to Miss Information.
5 Comments:
We only give visitor's passes to folks with out of town ID and only one a day. Anyone from our city who wants to use the Internet has to get a card.
Here, and I have to clarify we are an academic library, we only give two non-consecutive 1/2 hour slots on express computers to visitors (that is, people not affiliated to the campus). So, when they run out for the day, they are done and gone. Maybe your library should consider something similar, since as you point out, it does not seem right for that miscreant (hey, if he refuses to get a card in spite of the good advice, either he is a masochist or a miscreant, or both) to get more time on a computer than a legitimate user.
I have to agree with Dances with Books, and suggest a limit to the visitor's passes handed out in your library. I wish you luck.
Honey, he's got your number..and he's gonna look for your smiling face every time his dirty reeboks drag on the carpet on his way to the ref desk. and if you look real careful, you'll see him being an internet pig, just waiting, waiting for the booking of the poor shy sap behind him to run out so he can log in with his 5th onetime use of the day. People! Get some cojones and slay those internet pigs!
And then, the poor sap will come and complain to YOU because he was too much of an idiot to claim what was rightfully his. good thing we don't sell toilet paper...and don't be sending him to MY branch either..
Hey, sometimes I don't even WANT these whackos to get a library card when they're like that... all the better to encourage them NOT to come back LOL!
Plus, I get really sick and tired and ANNOYED by the constant, stupid haggling over ID... it just gets to be a bit too much (read: WAY too much). All we have to see is ID with name and address. It really isn't all that much to ask. I swear it seems like nobody ever carries any bloody, frikkin' ID anymore! (Hey, dummy, your car keys are in your hand... I wouldn't even want to know what the fine is for driving without one's license present and accounted for!) Among the many dozens of incredibly stupid excuses I've heard for why they can't be bothered to have any with them, we had one guy who told us that he never carries ANY ID because the very existence of identification is "all a government conspiracy to track everything anybody ever does, blah blah blah..." We never saw HIM again and, to my mind, it's "Good riddance Paranoia-Dude" :-D.
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