Sydney hit the warmest October day on record (which have been kept for 150-odd years) with a dizzy-spell inducing 38°C this afternoon. The bush fires have been starting up and although water restrictions and a few bouts of rain have recently increased the dam levels, with temperatures like these they’ll drop off again too quickly.
Thankfully we’re far off from the situation I lived through in Papua New Guinea in the early 90s where at times we had no running water (water trucks did good business filling up expatriate housing compound tanks with murky brown liquid) and we had scheduled black outs because Port Moresby relied on hydro-electricity. But in 10 years time… maybe they’ll have to relocate Sydney with some sort of monster crane and swing it south to cooler wetter climes (yes, the heat is getting to me).
Kimi scrambled in to 6th at Suzuka, out of the running and out of the commentary for the majority. Ah well.
I decided to explore a few of the Sydney libraries happily joining up for free due to being a rate payer in the City of Sydney. I was a little stunned to find that:
1. online you can key in your membership number and find out what books you’ve got loaned out, when they’re due and you can even renew them (if no one’s reserved them)
2. online you can search the catalogues of the combined City of Sydney Libraries
3. they no longer stamp the book slips with the due date!! I checked out my first book at the Haymarket Branch and I was handed a shop-docket-style receipt with the return date. I find this an outrage because a. I’ve always enjoyed seeing how many people have read the novel since the current slip was glued in place; b. when borrowed books scatter around my place I like to be able to pick them up and see when the book is due to kick me in to gear – with one slip for numerous books I can only place it as a reminder in one so I guess this means I’ll have to rely on the online information… but still! hmf!
Yeah, libraries, great ain’t they? I’ve just spent the last few months getting re-excited about libraries, after an absence of about ten years. And doing it online too, with http://hip.sheffield.gov.uk
But we still get the date stamped inside the book. You’re right, it’s just not right to do away with that.
Meanwhile, England is cold, wet and miserable.
you can always use the little slip as a bookmark. depends if you have a particular bookmark, or if you’re like me and use any old crap to mark your place 🙂 atm slips and receipts work pretty well…
As a librarian who stamps countless due dates and has also used the machines that spit out a receipt, I have to say I prefer the latter as it does not give me RSI! I’m all for computerisation, much cleaner and quicker. (Note the lack of nostalgia for card catalogues and stamps!)
While not a rate payer (renting) I’m also a City of Sydney resident and library user. What I do is either what someone else suggested and use the slip as a bookmark or alternatively just write the due date on the slip that’s still usually glued to the front but unused 🙂
trust me, i work in libraries. if you loan out 500 books a day to borrowers, you don’t want to be stamping the backs of all of them. technology has revolutionised libraries. could you imagine how it would be if we still had to use card catalogues? *shudder*