"A Trip to the Library" - from the musical "She Loves Me", 1963
Don't you think that's the most beautiful library card ever? It's my new Oxfordshire County library card, which I got last night.John suggested yesterday that we should join our village library. It was a great idea - and I really don't know why, in the almost 5-1/2 years I've lived there, I'd never joined. But I hadn't.
So after work yesterday, we took a walk over there and joined.
It's a terrific little library with a lot of resources. Man, have libraries changed since I last got a library card! For example, using your library card number, you can sign up for an online account with the Oxfordshire library system. You can then search all of the public libraries in the county; and for 85 pence (about $1.70, for my US readers), your local library will arrange to get any book located in any other Oxfordshire library. And for a little over £4 ($8+), they will get you any book located in any library anywhere in the entire country! Very efficient!
But one part of the application process really amused me. On the back side of the form was a section of optional questions...you know, the kind of things that county government would use to track the demographics of their users.
The first question was about ethnicity. Under the category of "White", I could tick one of the following boxes:
British
Irish
Other White
I don't recall ever being an "Other White" before!
Janet
posted by Janet @ 8:12 am
2 Comments
2 Comments:
That is a lovely card, I agree! The demographic question is funny - reminds me of a survey we just completed where the client insisted we break Asian into East and West and European (why would we ask that?) into East and West. Add those to white, black, hispanic.... it was a hoot.
Sounds very much like our library (including various options for the face of the library card) except for the various questions you mention on the application form. Beware,Big Brother is watching you!
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