I'm visiting Rolla to do a short project. Whenever I move to a new town/city, the first place I check out is the public library. Since I'm paying taxes locally, I'd like to take advantage of all the resources the local library offers. Years ago, however, I stopped spending time in public libraries. They've become far too noisy--from inconsiderate patrons talking on their cell phones or chattering with each other in person to kids screaming and running around, the library is no longer a haven of quiet reflection or a peaceful place where you can study or just enjoy ... reading. But I do pop into libraries to borrow books, CDs, and DVDs.
RPL doesn't have a large holding, but Rolla is a tiny town. To be fair, I've lived in even smaller rural towns (like Deming, WA--not even a real "town") with vastly superior library holdings, but at least Rolla HAS a library. The Internet speed, however, is abysmal. No getting work done there via wifi. I also tried to use the interlibrary loan option. Beware that Rolla's ILL can take a very long time. And, I'm sad to report, months later, most of my interlibrary loans have come back UNFILLABLE. In the many years I've been using ILL across the entire USA, including in smaller towns than Rolla, I've never before had a library call me on multiple ILLs for simple, common paperbacks to tell me they're unfillable. This has caused me to downgrade my review from 3-stars to 2-stars since, if you don't have a particularly robust collection yourself, local taxpayers should have reliable access to literature held at other facilities. And every time I filled out an ILL at RPL--every time--the staff lectured me about the costs of ILL. I get it. It costs to do an ILL and you'll charge me if I don't pick up my book. Hmmm. I wonder if RPL purposely doesn't put through ILLs to preempt placers failing to pick up our books.
At least RPL inspired me to finally get an Amazon Kindle account. :) read more
