Two decades of wine-soaked musings on gender, politics, anger, grief, progress, food, and justice.
Friday, March 07, 2008
Friendlier with two
By the way, said M this morning, I paid your library fine.
Who said chivalry was dead?
joella
4 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Ah you've got a good one there Joella. Mind you in order to properly evaluate the quality of chivalry on display here we would really need to know what sort of library fine we're talking about. As a veteran of the Newcastle City Libraries front-line (one year as a peripatetic branch assistant during the early 90s) I've levied fines that would make even a hardy bibliophile's hair curl.
On a minor sociologiacal transgression. it was always interesting to note how it was the residents in the more well-to-do parts of town who used to baulk most noisily at their punishment'. In the branches serving deprived inner-city neighbourhoods they would get their purses out to pay fines they really couldn't afford.. and then we would of course let them off, being true public servants, uninterested in swelling the civic coffers.
I do sometimes wonder if librarianship wasn't my truest vocation, and not just for the opportunity it offered to fleece Jesmond stockbokers of £7.50 for the overdue return of the latest Jeffrey Archer (of course what I would really like to have done is fine them for taking it out in the first place...)
One of the various hats I wore when I worked as a journalist was that of Assistant Editor of Library Manager magazine. For a couple of years I was one of the few people who could genuinely say 'librarians are my bread and butter'. I remain fond of them to this day.
My library fine was in the region of £2 -- I renew online these days, but I was a bit late. So not a world-stopping sum, but it's the thought that counts. I have racked up fines much bigger, but I've never resented paying them. Free books! What an enlightened concept. What the Victorians did for us, etc.
In the Fylde, I expect they'll shortly make some kind of pronouncement about libraries needing to make a financial contribution. And then shut them.
4 comments:
Ah you've got a good one there Joella. Mind you in order to properly evaluate the quality of chivalry on display here we would really need to know what sort of library fine we're talking about. As a veteran of the Newcastle City Libraries front-line (one year as a peripatetic branch assistant during the early 90s) I've levied fines that would make even a hardy bibliophile's hair curl.
On a minor sociologiacal transgression. it was always interesting to note how it was the residents in the more well-to-do parts of town who used to baulk most noisily at their punishment'. In the branches serving deprived inner-city neighbourhoods they would get their purses out to pay fines they really couldn't afford.. and then we would of course let them off, being true public servants, uninterested in swelling the civic coffers.
I do sometimes wonder if librarianship wasn't my truest vocation, and not just for the opportunity it offered to fleece Jesmond stockbokers of £7.50 for the overdue return of the latest Jeffrey Archer (of course what I would really like to have done is fine them for taking it out in the first place...)
One of the various hats I wore when I worked as a journalist was that of Assistant Editor of Library Manager magazine. For a couple of years I was one of the few people who could genuinely say 'librarians are my bread and butter'. I remain fond of them to this day.
My library fine was in the region of £2 -- I renew online these days, but I was a bit late. So not a world-stopping sum, but it's the thought that counts. I have racked up fines much bigger, but I've never resented paying them. Free books! What an enlightened concept. What the Victorians did for us, etc.
In the Fylde, I expect they'll shortly make some kind of pronouncement about libraries needing to make a financial contribution. And then shut them.
I paid The Girl's window cleaner when she was in the back garden. Does that count?
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