Tuesday, July 22, 2008

I went and did it...

I'm in trouble now. My obsession might be on the verge of an avalanche. The opportunities for saturation are many with World Cat at my fingertips. Oh, woe is EB...

That's right. On Thursday last, eb and I had occasion to visit the Montrose branch of the Houston Public Library. I. Got. Me. A library card. I think I might have had one when Witcher was still my last name, and I have been putting it off for fear of outstanding books from when there were children using the HPL. When we were at the library for the Lesbian book group (I have learned that capitalizinig Lesbian is correct as we are a culture!)to discuss the July book, Eat, Pray, Love, I went ahead and took my leap of faith. I now have 5 books on hold and awaiting notification that they are ready for pick up. Let me clarify, five knitting books.

I should pause to point out that when one signs up for such service, one should take the time to check online account preferences such as method of notification to be sure the counter clerk entered one's email address correctly. GUEENMAXINE? I think not. Here I would be sitting, awaiting notification...forever...

World Cat is the search feature for the Inter Library Loan feature. Very handy for the ever popular out of print knitting books going for hundreds of dollars on ebay or through booksellers. I certainly want to peruse something well before spending more than the publisher's suggested retail.

I find it interesting that 4 books I searched by Alice Starmore on World Cat are listed as being available within the HPL system, and yes, I did search there before expanding my options, thank you very much. So when this occurs, which database is more likely correct? If I search online, and then I ask at the library aboutit, will they then be searching the same database I already searched? Oh, the mysteries.

I recently added 37 days as a new link on the side bar. Please, go check her out.

3 comments:

SassyFemme said...

Up until recently we resisted going to the library for a variety of reasons. We just got cards to our town library and LOVE it. Fran favors the fiction section, I like the non-fiction selection.

eb said...

At least you have to take the books BACK.

Middle Girl said...

I am all about the library and until recently checked in and out of there on a weekly basis.

A couple of weeks ago I returned a book that was 2 weeks over-due. I checked my account and lo and behold, no holds on the account and no fines. The library fairy shined upon me. Yippeee!!

Congrats on the new card. Enjoy your finds.