Anti-Climacus

BUREAUCRACY--NOT SO GOOD:

I now have $33 and counting of fines for a book that I 1. never received a recall notice for and 2. in fact returned on Tuesday. So far the librarian I have dealt with has suggested 1. That I returned the wrong book (I didn't) and 2. In response to my suggestion that the book was checked out before the library converted to LoC, and might've been routed through cataloging, was told that the book already has a LoC call number.* Well, I don't know what to tell you about that last one: the Dewey-LoC conversion project started two years ago, and I've had the book for three.

The problem will most easily be solved by demonstrating that they in fact have the book, which is difficult to do when they lost the book in the first place.


*Since I worked for cataloging two summers ago, I am positive I know what happened: whoever flipped the record for one of the two copies of the book flipped it for both, without checking the little box in Aleph necessary to keep a book's call number in Dewey until it was returned, as they needed to with mine. Consequently, the book gets flagged and sent to cataloging, since it needs a new label, and never makes it to the Div School Library where it needs to go. I will rain fire and brimstone down upon them all until this gets fixed.