18 January 2008

An Open Letter to the IMCPL Hold System

Dear Librarians who do the holds at IMCPL,
The expression better late than never must mean something to you folks.

Back in November (November!) Word Nerd put a book on hold. Around the beginning of December, it was listed as "in transit" to her. Today, she is finally going to the library to pick it up.

Somehow, apparently, in the reopening of the new Central Library and Word Nerd switching her home library to Central from the College Ave. branch, this book got lost in the shuffle. Finally, a week or so ago, she decided that without some intervention, it was likely never going to get to her. Since reporting the problem, somebody found it somewhere and now Word Nerd can read it. And so can the other 7 people who have the book on hold after her.

But with the number of other holds on it, Word Nerd's got to reshuffle the order she was going to read the stack she's got in because this one won't be renewable.

And here's to hoping it's darn good, given the wait.

Oh, and people who do the holds -- please try to avoid this happening to some of the books Word Nerd's got holds on in the future. If she has to wait six-plus weeks for Marcus Sakey's new book or Chip Kidd's new one, she's not going to be a very happy camper.

Sincerely,
Word Nerd

2 comments:

Michael The Librarian said...

Dear Word Nerd, more than likely, your title was actually residing in Central Library before it opened. Since the Library was moving from one building to another, the Library stopped filling all Central holds (and moved patrons to other branches, like you to College Avenue). Once the building got ready to open, the Library started pulling all of the holds that had been placed during that short down time (about eight weeks, if I recall).


I can only imagine the number of books that were involved. Perhaps another couple of words for you would be "patience" and "understanding". After all, you did get your book, right?


and since this is moderated, I wonder if you will publish this?

Bethany K. Warner said...

Dear Library Guy,
Yes, patience is a good thing, which is why I waited for number of weeks before doing anything about it, to see if the book would surface on its own. These things happen, I know.

I do know that the copy of hte book I wanted didn't come from the Central Library's own holdings.

But, it's fine now, because I got the book and I'm enjoying it.

And just to be clear, I really like the new library overall. This was just one blip, I guess.