Having worked in the
university library for almost two years now, – first only for the English
Department, now for the whole of the Unipark – I’ve noticed that I’m getting
strange. I start remembering and paying attention to weird things. Things like
the exact shelf marks for nice or even not-so-nice books. Things like the
general inability of art history students to find shelf marks A-D in their
section of the library. Things like the belief inherent in library users that
merely because there are currently no baskets available they can just walk in
with their bags.
The
most recent trend is much more shocking, though. It’s a notion that’s been
steadily creeping into my consciousness for a few months, a notion that I’d
been fiercely rejecting because of its absurdness.