The book supply is woefully lacking at the library. I reserve two to three books a month via my computer. 100% of the time they come in from other libraries, even from as far away as Hoboken. I used to go to the library to get books but they never EVER have the books I want, which are not off-beat rare titles, believe me, just run-of-the-mill popular titles, many of them on the NY Times bestseller listing. I finally realized that the only way to do this was by inter-library loan. I feel like Nancy Greene must order no books at all, and just lets all the other libraries buy the books for the Ridgewood customers to borrow from them. Disgraceful.
Great point. It is a library, right?
It’s true it seems–the Ridgewood library is walking (running?) away from its traditional role as a book lender. E-books are not so convenient or popular a vehicle for substantive reading yet to justify this shift. Sad to say this, but those who run the Ridgewood library may be just as bored with the crucial job of improving the substantive knowledge of the general public as the school district is becoming with respect to the K-12 students. It’s all about process now. There is no longer any need for people to have a solid foundation of raw knowledge in a broad variety of subjects, a ‘la the classic “liberal arts” education. No, today they need only use their cell phones to do a targeted web search (and forget the results five minutes later). So teaching them the bare minimum of how to do a digital search is the only role that really matters for a library or high school. /s
I think we’re lucky to have such a large library system that can offer you access to all the titles you want and have them shipped conveniently to your library. The shared resources of the library system are valuable and cost-saving. Does it really make sense for each and every library to purchase 20 copies of every popular book only to have interest wane in 6 months?