Rules and Regulations

Gatekeepers have their jobs to do in our communities. Written requirements, articulated roadblocks and local authorities ultimately control our lives. That's civilization.

Do you have a library card?

Yes I do.

Your name?

Your number?

Your password?

In my wallet of important ID, I have a hard-plastic well-used library card, name prominently typed.  Number written in black ink. No space for a password.

I’m in my home, on my laptop seeking to check the availability of a book. Data not accepted.  Can’t do anything until I overcome this library card roadblock.

Okay.  I’ve carried a card since 1975.  Things change.  I’ve got to update myself.  Off I go to get another one.

Huge parking lot in the municipal center has many empty spaces.  I pull into one of several available spots against the wall, three rows directly across from the library’s entrance.  Taking key from ignition I notice a restrictive sign in front and above me.   My mind chastises me.  That space is for those doing municipal business. 

Am I doing municipal business?  I don’t think so.  I’m there to see if I need a Library Card and if so, get one.  I’m doing personal business.

I don’t want a parking ticket.  I move my car to one of the center rows with no designation or restriction sign posted.

Inside the building, I go directly through the arbor-like secured aisle and make a short left turn to the desk assistant I remember handles inquiries.  A woman was at the counter spot closest to the doorway but she was gathering books putting them on a roll away cart.  No use stopping for her attention.  I was certain she would send me to the other gentleman visible just around the corner.  Why put myself in the position to be ordered where I was certain I should be? My assessment was correct.

The seated man finished helping two women checking out books and asked if he could help me.

Holding out my library card already in hand, I told him I wanted to do whatever was necessary to be able to use the library.  “I had tried to get online service and  could not.”

Taking the card, he asked did I live in town.  He asked for my driver’s license.  He said perhaps I had not used my card for a long time.  I said I wrote a book and was always online checking the library sharing system to see activity for my book.  Looking at the screen in front of him, he told me I needed a new card and proceeded to tap away on the keyboard.

Shortly I was given a longer white plastic card and a felt tip marking pen and told to sign the card on the line where he pointed.  The wide felt tip pen made a horrible signature.

Still keyboarding information he asked for my telephone number.  I gave it. He asked for my email address.  I told him I don’t give it to everyone.  He asked didn’t I want notified if a book is due to be returned.  My answer was that would never be necessary.  A few minutes passed and he produced a document, seemed to be half of an 8 ½” x 11” paper, put it in front of me. 

My quick eyes saw various boxes held my typed personal information.  He did not ask me to read it, just handed me a real ink pen and instructed me to put my signature “here”.   I asked what the paper was for.  He said it verified I was the person that applied for the library card.  I did my usual signature; pleased it looked 100% better than the one with the felt tip marker.  I hoped he had put in correct information, spelled correctly also.

He said the new library card would be mailed to me.   He could give me a library card number to use if I wanted to check out books or go online for library service.  I said okay.  He wrote a string of numbers and perhaps something else on a little scrap of paper and handed it to me.  I questioned whether I would use that until my card came.  He said,  “You want to use the library today don’t you, go online for something?”  “Not today” was my crisp answer.   Then he said, well that number will be good for today only.

He told me until the new library card came I would have to get a handwritten pass each day I wanted to use the library (like using a daily pass for a missing credit card while shopping???).  Feeling dissed as I heard the unbelievable roadblock to using the library, I gave his scribbled note back to him.   He repeated my card would come in the mail.

Then as he held the two signed documents, I asked if I wasn’t getting a copy of the signed proof that I had applied for the card.  He said, “You want a copy of this?  “Here,” and passed it toward me, motioning toward the reference room across the way where I knew the copy machine for the public is behind closed doors.  I said, “I’ll have to make the copy and pay 10c for it?”  He said, “Yes.“

“Amazing,” was all I could say, turning and walking away from him and his papers. 

Deeply disappointed with the services my tax dollars had given me those minuscule 30 minutes; I simply came here to the reference room to calmly sit and work on my laptop.  I would write about all that just happened.

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Gratefully, my son survived his youth.

That Wednesday I was feeling surly, emotionally charged about the killing of an unarmed black teenager by a uniformed policeman.  A mother’s son, Michael Brown, Jr. was shot dead last Saturday afternoon in Ferguson, Missouri.  

Leaving the house to update my library card was an effort to put distance between that horrible news and me.

Instead, I left the municipal complex more disgruntled because of the perfectly precise and  ‘un-user friendly’ process for replacing an old library card.

Today I am better.  On Friday, the mail carrier delivered my new library card.

Now if only law enforcement authorities would make it a precise matter of information for public record and to media that it is against policy for any officer to shoot to kill an unarmed person.  That officer will be held, subject to an immediate and thorough investigation.  I think it must be part of the rules and regulations from the lowest level of oversight up to the highest.