…over such a small matter as loaning a book, it really can’t be that complicated. I spent the weekend watching Victorian Romance Emma instead of stitching. I never saw the end of the series so I was very excited to watch both seasons back to back when I got the second season in the mail last week! You may ask why I can’t watch and stitch at the same time as I usually do. Well, it mostly has to do with the fact that I like to watch Asian dramas or anime series in their native language. As much as I love the fact that American companies are bringing more anime series to store shelves, the voice actors they hire to voice the characters are cringe-worthy. Needless to say when I watch dramas or anime series I have to forgo any stitching for that time period ^__^”
After finishing VR Emma, I was flipping through one of the mini booklets that the series’ box sets came with and noticed that they actually mentioned the title of the book that Emma picks up at Mudgie’s lending library. Rosaline Woodbridge: or A Midnight Visit by Hannah Maria Jones. I decided to do some book sleuthing and the book is an actual English romance novel from that time period!!
With that in mind, I frantically searched every book site I could think of on the Internet to see if any one had a copy of this book. I found a few copies, but they were about $600 a copy! YIKES!! My next bet for finding this elusive book was checking with my local universities’ libraries.
While a friend of mine who is a librarian was searching for the book in her secret library databases (LOL), she suggested that I try my local library since they also have ILL services! I emailed the department and for the first time in my life, I was extremely disappointed in the MPL! The librarian who responded only checked on the OCLC numbers that I had given her and emailed back saying that those institutions were unlikely to consider loaning the book since it dates back to 1827. She made no attempt to contact those libraries and ask if the book could be loaned as they were in the ‘regular’ section of their shelves and not in the special collections. Nope, no attempts whatsoever.
To my credit, I wasn’t mean in my response to her email. I was quite cordial about the whole situation and told her politely that I would check with my undergraduate university and see if they could loan the book out for me. Hopefully, my friend can work her library mojo and do a happy book dance and I’ll be able to loan out this book to read! I don’t mind paying $20 for a lending fee……quite reasonable when you think of the $600 it would cost to actually by the book?!?!
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I hope the happy book dance works!
ReplyDeleteIsn't it frustrating when you know the book you want and you just cannot get your hands on it! I have a list of out of print books that I'd like to borrow. I hope your librarian friend finds a copy for you.
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