Walking back to my car from the state house, a silly thought occurred to me as I walked toward the library. A Concord local in a chat group made a comment some time ago about two public figures being “besties” in high school. “Why not,” I thought. I was curious to see what these two 70-year-olds looked like in 1974, presumably the year of their graduating class, though they had not graduated from law school at the same time.
I approached the circulation desk and was warmly greeted by the employee there. I asked if Concord High School yearbooks were available to take a look at, and she said yes and asked what year I had in mind. After I said “1974,” she pulled out a piece of paper, and I said I was sure they were in the reference department, expecting her to direct me there or escort me. She said they’re locked in a room with other stuff, which I’ve since forgotten, but she went on to say that I had to complete the request form.
“Sure,” I said, grabbing a pen and thinking it was just basic boilerplate to complete and hand to some gopher to procure the requested item(s) and usher me to some special area reserved for viewing such materials. I joked that 1974 wasn’t so long ago that I had to wear gloves to handle a high school yearbook. She chuckled and said, “No gloves, but did you know that wearing gloves is sometimes more harmful to certain materials when being handled?” I didn’t know that, and we made small talk as I started to complete the request form.
Then came the dealbreaker; one must leave ID with the circulation desk person as collateral while viewing materials from this special locked room! Unwilling to agree to such conditions, I made a counteroffer. I said, “I know what I’m looking for. Can’t you just accompany me into the room and I will leave after taking pictures of what I want to see?” No can do. She politely explained that it would be a breach of the procedure, and I certainly didn’t want to present myself as demanding special treatment. I said, “I know you’re not the one who makes the rules, but this rule is stupid, so I withdraw my request,” and walked out the front door, “doing a Nancy Pelosi” to the partially populated request form.
I thought about the Nashua library 5 years ago, shortly after they decided to allow people to breathe fresh air inside, but the place was still full of plexiglass, a special greeter offering masks and hand sanitizer, and the 90-minute rule. Yeah, they would kick you out, whether or not there were people waiting for an available seat at a table with that 6′ radius for social distancing. I had only paid for 90 minutes’ worth of parking, so I didn’t balk at that rule, but my subsequent visit was less pleasant.
When I posted a rant about it, the ‘Grok Editor in Chief asked if he could publish it, making it my very first GG contribution. I pulled it up from the Grok archives to see that Steve had titled it “ID is needed to reactivate my library card, but not to vote?“
It doesn’t take a PhD in library science to surmise that the Concord library operates using the same playbook as the Nashua library in ALL of its rules and operations manuals. I furthermore think that this stupid ID rule was created by a bunch of library trustees who cry “racism” and “voter suppression” about requiring ID to vote.
