Not raining ...

It's not raining today.  It's been raining, and that has been enough to clear a lot of the snow from the sidewalks and the edges of the roads.  So it's a nice day to walk: at least, nicer than the past few days.

Friday was pretty bad, and Saturday was pretty bad, and Sunday morning definitely wasn't great, although Christmas dinner with the girls, and the visit, and the news, was pretty terrific.  And then Monday and Tuesday were pretty awful although that might have been post-celebratory let-down.  (Personally, I don't dread Christmas as much as New Year's: Christmas alone just means you have little in the way of immediate family.  New Year's Eve alone means you have no friends, either.)  So, today was nice.  Walking down to the men's breakfast, pretty much alone on the streets, but with almost no ice patches to worry about.  Heading down past the library to drop something off.

Now, I bow to no one in my love of libraries.  Libraries are wonderful institutions, and one of the signs of a true civilization.  And I definitely appreciate the local branch of our regional library.

At the same time, I have been somewhat bemused at the specific operations here.  I find it odd that our branch apparently has no interest in providing workshops or seminars for the public.  Seemingly of any kind.  I'd come to see that as a kind of base function of a library.  But it doesn't seem to be regarded that way here.  In addition, I find the demand to have the physical library card present to be interesting.  As a security maven, I appreciate the need for authentication.  But I also know that, fifteen feet from the desk, I can (and pretty much always do) use the checkout terminal to check out my materials, based on the fact that I have memorized my card number and PIN.  The only time I need to produce further authentication is when the library staff have misfiled something, and I have to ask for help.

At first I didn't realize the problem as I got close to the doors of the library, before it was open.  The drop boxes, outside, all had their drop doors open.  I wondered if someone had been so desperately fishing for books, that they had jammed the doors open.  But, no: as I got closer, and could see inside the bins, it was obvious that they were full.  *So* full that the drop doors wouldn't close any more.  In hindsight, this should have been foreseeable: the library was closed on Sunday, and then closed Saturday because it was also Christmas, and then closed Monday because it was Boxing Day, and then closed Tuesday because ... (well, I'm not quite sure about Tuesday), and then closed Friday because it was a snow day.  So, five days in a row.

But it does point out yet another operation issue here: even in the district, someone came in on days off (particularly long weekends), to ensure that bins and drops were clear.  (Presumably it only took an hour or so.)

Oddly, Sunday night, and Monday night, preceding two pretty bad days, were, in fact, really good nights.  Both nights I got something like nine hours of sleep.  So, it's somewhat ironic that last night I had really rotten sleep, but it was a reasonably good day ...