friend I'll never meet

[boxofdelights]

I use my library's "holds" system a lot. When an item I have put on hold comes in, the librarian prints a bookmark with my initials, sticks the bookmark in the item, and puts it on the "holds" shelf. Then I can pick it up and check it out without ever speaking to another human being.

Books that are on hold for different users with the same initials are all mixed together on the shelf. There must have been a lot of collisions during lockdown, when the only way to get physical objects from the library was through the holds system; but during lockdown it was up to the librarians to retrieve things from the shelf and check them out to you. In normal times, most people don't use the holds system that much.

But there is another user with the same initials as me who puts a lot of things on hold, and quite a few of her things are things I want to read, or have read and liked! (Sometimes I say "Huh?" or "Not worth the time" -- but maybe those holds belong to a third RSE!) This week, her holds were Bewilderment, by Richard Powers, and A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, by Alicia Elliott. Last time they were Future Home of the Living God, by Louise Erdrich, The Other Black Girl, by Zakiya Dalila Harris, and Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro.

I want to invite her to my book group!

Comments

[sonia]

That is really cool! You could slip a note in one of her (?) books...

Collisions are a problem, like you said, but otherwise that system does provide more privacy.

I live near a tiny library branch of a big county library with an extensive collection, so the hold system gets used a LOT. Ours are alphabetized by last name, with the full name on the bookmark slip. I learned a friend's middle name from seeing a hold slip. And I've recognized names near mine occasionally, including an author I'm a fan of!

[boxofdelights]

I would love to leave a note but am afraid of being creepy.

It is cool to see what people are reading! That must be one of the perks of being a librarian.

[sonia]

I dunno, something like "We read that for book group! - The other RSE" is pretty undemanding. They're probably eyeing your holds approvingly as well.

[lunabee34]

Now I want a short story about people who only interact in this way. :)

[boxofdelights]

Me too!

[mrissa]

We have a really vibrant holds system here, passionately used even well before the pandemic. A visitor referred to it as "the Minneapolis holds shelves," and I had to explain to him that it was not the Minneapolis holds shelves he was looking at (three banks of shelves organized by the last four digits of library card number and the first three letters of legal last name), it was not even the south suburbs holds shelves, it was just MY suburb; my mother, ten minutes away in a different suburb, has another bank of holds shelves just as large.

It makes me happy to walk through them and see all the good books other people are reserving, and yes, I too have absolutely considered leaving notes in them saying things like, "Definitely stick around for the sequel! :) --your neighbor at 3423GRI."

[boxofdelights]

It really is a comfort to see what other people are reading. I went to Sirens last month, and I felt very shy, but at the Welcome Reception the first speaker reminded us that Sirens came with a built-in conversation starter: "What have you been reading?"

[jesse_the_k]

Ooooo! I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Sirens experience.

Did you attend F2F?

[boxofdelights]

I didn't attend F2F. Did you? What did you think of it?

I'm working on a post about Sirens.

[jesse_the_k]

I'd love to hear your thoughts, in any medium.

I've never been.

Their PR makes it seem as Serious and Important as people thought WisCon was before fandom hit it.

[cimorene]

That is adorable and also a GREAT setup for the beginning of a story.

[boxofdelights]

Yes!

[kore]

....omg, clearly it's Alternate You from the universe three feet to the left.

[boxofdelights]

WHat would happen if we met? Would I like her? (Would she like me?)

[ljgeoff]

My last two books were Erdrich's Future Home of the Living God and Beneath the Rising by Premee Mohamed, and now I want to read something not so sorrowful. I'm gonna give Leone Ross's This One Sky Day a shot. Have you read it?

[boxofdelights]

I have not, but it sounds like a tropical vacation in a book!

[hobbitbabe]

In ours, what's visible on the hold shelves is a gently-stuck-on label with the first four letters of the surname. There's another MALL at our branch who reads manga. Years ago, one of my bookclub friends used the same branch. She's great at finding out about new releases from author blogs and getting on the hold lists early, so I took to checking out the holds under her first-four on the way to checking mine. Once I saw her code on a book that sounded like it would be hers, but I didn't have anything on me to leave a note with - so I just stuck one of my business cards in the book. And of course, all the way home I wondered what if it was someone else with that abbreviation, and I don't remember if she ever did notice the business card.

At some points in the pandemic, the branch was open for picking up holds and for the one shelf of new-and-recommended, and at other points it went to "library takeout", where you phone from outside and they run out with your holds and drop them on a table with a 2-m circle chalked around it. (There were workarounds for people without cell phones, of course). They still do takeout for people who prefer that, now, and they aren't doing proof-of-vaccine-required for entry because the library is an essential service like groceries.

[boxofdelights]

My library did "takeout", like yours, during lockdown, except that they had no workaround for people without cell phones. I thought about asking them why not, but I always decided they had enough on their plates.

[hobbitbabe]

My library's still doing the takeout for people who prefer it. I think the workaround options include calling before you leave home to give them your library card number and then ringing the bell when you get there, or just ringing the bell if you aren't able to do that.

My sister's library branch, in a fancy suburb in Ohio, already had a drive-through window before covid. She liked that when she had a toddler to wrangle.

[jesse_the_k]

I'm not current on the statistics today, but for a long time our branch was the busiest in the system because of all the holds -- which I began using when it was a dial-up terminal app. (They've just "improved" their web-based catalog and I often long for the Good Old Days.)

The MPL tags for me read KAY J, and the librarians know me well enough that it's always on a reachable shelf. My warm regard for librarians is unquenchable.

Do you know any "librarians save the universe" books/movies/comics/poetry?