Monday, August 25, 2008

A limit by any other name

Today the kids and I went to the medium-size library. (I have cards at four libraries in an attempt to keep these kids in reading material.) I went prepared with a list of fiction and non-fiction books that tied into our history reading, and LW was surprisingly good, so I actually had time to find them.

EM, IM, and NB each selected books. LW selected books. I took one look at LW's books and selected some to read to him that I could stand to read more than once. Then EM saw me pulling the history tie-ins and decided to scout out some of his old favorites for NB and IM.

As we staggered to the counter, I realized we had more books than we had checked out at once from this library before.

"Is there a book limit?" I asked the two women behind the counter.
They looked at me a little oddly. "No, there isn't a limit."
Sighing with relief, I piled all the books onto the counter. The woman behind the desk blinked. "This will exceed the 30 book maximum the system can put on one card."

And that differs from a limit how?

Fortunately, I have three kids over the age of six who all now have library cards.

4 comments:

PixelFish said...

I'm so proud! I love that they read so much.

Jessica said...

We have the same issue at our library, and I had tried to keep it all on one card for simplicity's sake, only to have one snooty library guy tell me I wasn't allowed to take out more than 30. Fine. So I got Kasia a library card, and the guy was ticked -- while I was signing up with another librarian, he turned around to crisply say, "Is there something I can help you with?" Just signing up for a card, thanks.

Minda said...

I am lucky that the librarians were very nice. They were actually the ones who suggested I get cards for all the kids.

WendyandGabe said...

Darn those mean librarians! :) Our limit is 100 items per card, so you wouldn't have that problem. We do have a 10 DVD limit though, (honestly who has time to watch 10 movies in a week?) I have had patrons who try to exceed the 10 DVD limit and then tell their children that the "mean librarian" won't let them get any more, right as I'm standing there helping them. We also have patrons that try to skirt the system by checking out 10 DVDs, putting 10 on hold to pick up later, and then requesting 10 more holds on their account. These people have way too much time.