bad, bad library

[abka]

Today I went to the Library of Congress. I had gone in highschool as a tourist and was so excited to go as a researcher and actually request a book (remember that episode of Reading Rainbow?). I expected it would be a moderate pain, I had to go in one building, register, get an ID card, I found out the periodical I had hoped was there (but couldn't find online), is only in NY, Yale, Iowa, and the Getty (LA). Still I had the call number for a book, went through a tunnel to the other building, got lost, found the cloakroom, and finally put in my request in the main reading room. It was supposed to take 45 minutes. After an hour I was freezing and went to see if they sold sweatshirts in the gift shop (they didn't), then had some medicore (but spicy) chili in the cafeteria which at least warmed me up. An hour and forty minutes book still hadn't arrived. The nice librarian went and looked and said it wasn't on the shelf so it must be delayed in transit. So I spent 4.5 hours of my day (including travel) and still didn't get my book!!! I have a research progress report due tomorrow in class and had hoped to look at this first. I'm going to go back first thing tomorrow and see if it arrived. The guy said he'd put it on the hold shelf for me (or a confirmation that they couldn't find it.) Blech, how frustrating. I'm behind on research for this paper and I have another history paper due next week that's barely started so I'm a little stressed. Also because some Williams people are coming up this weekend so it's going to be busy (and my parents are visiting the weekend after that.)

Comments

[coffman.livejournal.com]

Bah! That sounds horrible. I'm sorry!

[grumph.livejournal.com]

LOC sucks. As a general rule, in my experience, all closed stack libraries suck unless they are really small. (My limited experience would be LOC & NYPL as far as big research libraries, and undergrad special collections by way of small. I had no problems with special collections).