From the blog Begging The Question: "I remember when the librarian was a much older woman: kindly, discreet, unattractive. We didn't know anything about her private life. We didn't want to know anything about her private life. She didn't have a private life."
In the same post, the blogger talks about not checking books out of the library for the same reason not to rent porn from a Blockbuster--because of the ickiness factor. Course, having OCD, I can kind of understand not wanting to check books out of the library because of all the stuff they get exposed to. I feel that way about magazines in doctors' offices. But with library books, oh, no, that doesn't stop me. No, library fines stop me, because every now and then, even with all the nifty ways to keep track of books they have these days, I sometimes just forget to bring them back. As a result, I make occasional 'donations' to the cause. I am probably on some bad librarian list somewhere. But that's the problem with librarians, you see. We WANT TO KEEP the books. For ourselves. Really.
Of course, if I were working at the libraries where I check books out, I probably wouldn't have any trouble, because in many places there's this great secret benefit, namely that librarians/staff aren't subject to fines. I don't know how widespread it is, but I desperately need it. Fortunately I'll be able to free my account soon from my latest bungle. And by the way, they're all accounted for and were returned quite some time ago, without being overdue that much. I just had a lot of books out, and that adds up quickly, even at just 10 cents a day per book. Ouch.
Of course, being a librarian, I've also heard stories about what winds up in book drops that would guarantee the germ-phobic would not go near a book.
By the way, I found that quote by using Google's new Blog Search module and typed in 'librarian', just to see what came up. :)
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