Yume's Epic Library Adventure

The other day, I went to the downtown library to find a book to use for research on a group project, because our teacher wanted us to use real paper books and not teh internets. I'm not sure why. I guess she either worried about the utter lack of accountability and publishing standards in cyberspace, or she wants to ensure that the time-honored Dewey Decimal System is not lost to posterity. Either way, the subject was not open for negotiation, so to the library I went. Little did I know it was going to turn into the most epic adventure of all week.

Problem number one: I don't know my way downtown very well, and I'm not a good driver. But never fear, that's what Google maps are for. I got my handy-dandy printed map, hopped in my little red RAV4, and set off into the big city. I was cruising down Central Parkway when I realized I had missed a turn—apparently "slight right" means "any right turn that is slightly less than 90 degrees" and "slight left" means "keep going straightish while the main road splits off in two directions." I briefly panicked, tried to turn around, and somehow ended up on the street I was supposed to be on anyway. Well, as Morpheus says, it's not knowing the path, it's walking the path. Right?

I continued for a few blocks, dodging construction and pedestrians, until I arrived at the next intersection on the list. Then I discovered that Google had directed me the wrong way up a one-way street. I don't know if it was temporarily one-way because of the aforementioned construction, or if I actually had the wrong street (the street sign was kind of at 45 degrees to the intersection so it was hard to tell which road they were talking about), or if Google just made a mistake, but I randomly picked another direction and wandered into unfamiliar territory.

The good thing about being bad at finding my way is that I'm getting pretty good at being lost. I drove around for a little while and eventually ended up on 3rd street, which was pretty close to where I wanted to be. Further wandering got me to Plum, where I spotted a parking garage. It cost four dollars, and I'm cheap, so I passed it up. Besides, I still hadn't found the library and I at least wanted a general idea of where it was before getting out of my car. I got to the end of the street and briefly panicked again because I was being forced onto the highway, but I managed to worm my way through a couple lanes of traffic and get back to 3rd street. I circled several times, got lost, and somehow found Plum again. (Plum is, if I recall, also the name of the bird in Zelda Twilight Princess. I hated that bird. He made you fly through a thousand foot chasm of whitewater rapids popping stupid fruit-shaped balloons while held in the claws of a one-eyed bird shadow monster thing, and then made fun of you if you fell to your death, prompting levels of frustration not dissimilar to what I was experiencing at the moment I came down this street for the second time.) At this point it was getting late, and the expensive garage was unfortunately the only parking I could find within a reasonable distance of where I thought the library probably was. But hey, I told myself, parking in a garage is nice. My car will be safer. I pulled in and took my little paper ticket. It was slightly dark and scary, but not terrible. Still, I didn't think it was a good idea to leave anything valuable in the car, so I stuffed everything in my bag, checked in all directions for muggers, and got out.

I wandered around the garage for a few minutes before I found a set of stairs. Okay, I thought, I'll burn some calories to make up for that Frappucino this morning. (I can quit any time I want to. Seriously.) It was only when I got to the bottom that I discovered they didn't go to the ground level. See what you get for trying to be healthy? Back up I went. Yay, elevator! This one led to the ground floor and opened out into a nice lobby-ish area. The moral of the story is that sometimes to get to the bottom of things, you have to find the laziest possible solution.

Having finally escaped the parking garage, I surveyed my surroundings. To the left, a large rectangular office building. To the right, a busy intersection, and smaller rectangular office buildings. Did I mention I have trouble navigating in cities? I started walking in a random direction, trying not to look lost or like a tourist, because looking lost makes you appear vulnerable, and anyway it's embarrassing to be this lost in your own hometown. After a while I found Garfield street, clearly marked by a large bronze statue of the president himself. At least I think it was him. There was a pretty little park area, and I was glad for the shade, if a little wary of the pigeons. (I've heard stories.)

I circled the block a couple of times on foot, then tried to call my dad to ask him for directions, without looking like I was trying to call and ask for directions. He was in a meeting and not answering. I wandered some more. Cincinnati is actually really pretty. I never realized that before. Had it not been so late, I would have taken the time to enjoy it a little more. But suddenly, it occurred to me to actually look at the little map that comes printed on the Google Maps directions. Lo and behold, Garfield practically dead-ends into the library. Feeling very silly, I made my third pass through the park and finally found the building. I paused to kick myself because there was a dollar parking lot right across the street, then went inside.

Problem number two: the library is a big place and I really don't know how to use the Dewey Decimal System. I had the title and author of the books and I knew from the online catalog that they were on the second floor, so I wandered, found the elevator, and headed up there hoping to stumble upon the book. You'd think I would learn from my experience finding the building. But no, I searched the nonfiction stacks for a while, then somehow wound up in periodicals and had to back up. I tried to use their library catalog, but it requires a library card, and I lost mine when my wallet got stolen last year. I was too stubborn to ask for directions, so I went back to look some more. Eventually, though, desperation overcame pride and I went up to the help desk to ask for a temporary computer pass. I got one and went to look up the book again. This time I remembered to write down the set of numbers that went with it, which I gather is supposed to be some kind of guide to help you find it. I stumbled around again, and still found nothing. At last I swallowed my pride and went to ask for help. There was a very nice man there who went with me and led me back to the same shelf I'd been searching through for a good half hour. At first he couldn't find it either, and I felt slightly vindicated. But then he said, "Oh, here it is!" and pulled it out from between two other books. It was a lot smaller than I expected. I thanked the librarian profusely and was about to leave, when I remembered another book in the catalog that was by the same author. I figured, since I came all this way, it wouldn't hurt to have a little extra research. I asked him about it, but unfortunately it wasn't on the shelves, so he had to go back in their collection and hunt for it. He was really nice about it, though. So I waited for a couple of minutes and he came out with it. I thanked him again and was going to go make copies, when I realized I was out of change. This was a problem, since I couldn't check out the book without a card. He assured me that getting a card would only take a few minutes at the desk downstairs. I figured there was no time like the present to get a new card, so away I went.

It was around 5:30, so things were pretty busy at the registration desk, but they were really helpful in spite of having to deal with a phone call from someone who kept calling them with the wrong number at the same time. I explained my situation and they said I might still be in the system. They looked me up and found me, which was a blessing because I only had to update my account and get a new card printed instead of filling out a whole application. That part went pretty smoothly, except for some slight confusion when I told them that I lived on Euclid and they put me down as the other Euclid. (Every city has at least one street named Euclid, but Cincinnati is special so we have two.) But anyway, it only took a few minutes for me to get my shiny new red library card. Whee! I went over to the automatic kiosk to check out my books.

Problem number three: technology hates me. I scanned the new card and got an error message. I figured maybe the new card wasn't activated or in the system yet, so I took it over to the human checkout librarians. (Never send a machine to do a man's job...?) They said the card should be active immediately and tried to scan it. Then they tried to enter my name manually, but I wasn't showing up in the system. Well, I thought, this is a step in the wrong direction. They directed me back to the registration counter. When I got back the wrong-number person was calling again, and then someone came over with another question, so they were pretty busy. I felt bad for being a pest, but I asked her to check my card again. A few minutes and two librarians later, we discovered they had entered my card number as my name and vice versa. (I retract my earlier comment about men and machines.) I laughed because this whole thing had finally passed the threshold of irritating and was actually pretty funny. We got the card issue corrected, and they apologized a lot (but really, I can hardly blame them—I should know how easy it is to make mistakes with computers!) So I got my really-working library card and headed back to the automatic checkout.

Aaaaah Library Fines! I owed five dollars and seventy four cents, which apparently had to be paid before I was allowed to check anything out. Luckily, the thing took Visa, because I had no cash. This reminded me that I was going to need cash to get out of the parking garage. I paid off my fine and proceeded to check out my books, only to get another error message. I gave up on the automatic checkout and took it back to the librarians at the counter, who thankfully were able to check it out for me without further incident. It was then that I realized the nice gentleman from upstairs had given me the wrong book. It was actually another book with a similar title, but by a different author. But whatever, I still had the one I came for, and I was not about to go back up and bother him (and myself) a third time.

Things seemed to be going my way now, and I found an ATM on the way out of the library. But in a final measure of annoyance, it was a Fifth Third ATM, which charged me a fine to withdraw and would only give twenties. I pondered going somewhere to break it, then decided I was spending enough today between the fines and parking, and hoped that there would be a human cashier in the garage and he or she would accept large bills.

I got out of the library and walked the half mile or so back to the garage. At this point my dad called back, and I assured him that I was all right and not nearly as lost as I had been a few hours ago. On the way back up to my car, I nearly missed the elevator, but a nice guy stopped it for me by sticking a baseball bat that he happened to be carrying in the door. (I think he was coming from a game or something cause he was dressed all baseball-y.) I really did meet a lot of nice people that day! They were the only thing that made the rest of the stupid things I got myself into bearable. So anyway, I accidentally got off the elevator on the wrong floor and had to take the stairs up a flight. Guess those stairs come in handy after all! I felt immensely relieved to be back in my car... until I realized I had lost the garage ticket. I got stuck at the cashier's booth with two people behind me, and ended up emptying out my purse and my pockets looking for the ticket. The cashier was very patient with me, but I never did find it, so I had to pay extra and fill out a lost-ticket form. I imagine the guy behind me was pretty irritated.

The true irony of all this? The book I was looking for was Ambient Findability by Peter Morville. And I never read it once for that report because we got all our information off the internet. I've been meaning to return it to the library, but I'm not sure where I put it...