NYC Libraries can get on my nerves!!

RANT to Follow

Although New York City libraries house a wide selection of books, it annoys me to no end that when I go to take a book out, it is NEVER there. Of course I can put things in the queue and wait, but if I look on-line and see that a particular book is available at a particular branch, and I'm nearby, I'm going to go get it.

Below is what I see on my end. Clearly it says that the book is AVAILABLE.



My queue is full of books that have not been released yet (the queues tend to get super long & if you don't put it on months before release, it can take 6 months before you get it) , so I can't put this one there, but no matter, I'll schlep over and get it right...? WRONG!

It was not even in the library. I looked high and low on all the shelves. I looked in other letters beside K (for King) in case it was mis-filed. I looked in the hardcover section, I looked in the mainstream fiction section (even though this page says it is a paperback in the sci-fi section - as per the call letters). Some might say "So what, it happens." But it ALWAYS happens. A few weeks ago I was so excited to see "The Stand" in paperback at the library near my house was available. So I ran over there, guess what? It wasn't there. I asked the librarian to double check the system, wondering if in the 15 minutes it took me to get from my house to the library it was borrowed, but it still showed AVAILABLE. His reply, "Must have been stolen."

YOU THINK?

Stephen King ROCKS and I know his stuff is popular, but why do people have to steal? The library is for everyone. Read the book and return it. It is so hard to get a Stephen King book out of a NYC public library, one is better of buying it.

And it is beyond me how in some libraries here in NYC, people can steal anything. It is like Fort Knox in the Mid-Manhattan Branch and the Bronx Library Center. In both of these places you have to show your bag entering and exiting, and they have the detectors. So how are people walking with these books?

I suppose in the future if I see a Stephen King book on the shelf, I'd better grab it then, whether I want to read it at that point or not, because otherwise, I'll never get to read it.