How can this be? The Chicago Public Library classifies my borrower status as “good.” I’ve had so many late books and lost books, that I am a large benefactor to keeping the library’s budget balanced.
What sort of levels of borrower status do they have? Is it just “good” and “delinquent”? Here’s the structure I suggest they have:
1) Perfect: Oh yeah, you know there’s gotta be people out there with a perfect borrowing record. And you can only get this if you have taken out over 50 books. Oh wait. Let’s break that up into: Perfect Newbie (for those who have taken out just a couple books) and Perfect Veteran.
2) Great
3) Good
4) Unreliable
5) Crappy
6) Delinquent Master
7) Banned
Oh you know the Chicago Public Library has GOTTA have a “Banned” status.
You had to know I’d be one of the first to reply to this one! If CPL is anything like other public systems, it doesn’t really keep records of your borrowing history (it’s a privacy issue). So, you either have good standing or you don’t — in the electronic records. I don’t remember hearing about “banned” patrons from the public library, just the university library (at my old job). However, the people who work there might have their own internal chatting about you. Like, “Oh, here comes that guy who never returns his stuff on time.” I like the 7-point system though. 🙂
Unlikelymoose tried leaving a comment, but it was ironically blacklisted by my system, so here’s my attempt posting for him: congrats on your “good” rating you Delinquent Master. ============== I think i’d be ranked somewhere between “unreliable” and “cra-ppy”. I never lost a book or cd. Though odds are good that I have to pay a fine for whatever item I check out. I think my biggest fine has been somewhere in the te-ens. I don’t believe I ever broke the $20 mark. Though I’m convinced that the Elmhurst Public Library cheats people on their fines. ==============
oops i screws up. The separator line is supposed to include his “congrats” line too. FYI, “te-ens” is a word that is blacklisted from the spudart comment box. (note my clever usage of a dash to fool the system! FOOLED YOU COMMENT BOXER THING! HAHAHA!)
Kelly, Thank you for your expert insight. Libraries really don’t keep track of my borrowing history? That is so disappointing! Man. I would love to see a complete list of all the books I took out from the CPL. (I’ve blogged about that before)
An interesting entry. . . I’ve had quite the experience with CPL. I too think they should track your borrowing history and reward you if you acheive status number 1 & 2 as suggested by spud. WHY? Well I’m taking a grad class and have had to do some research on Chicago history. CPL has oodles of books. Unfortunately to combat those folks who lose or don’t return the books, they have taken to making 7 copies of the same book reference. This is a standard practice for books on Chicago history at CPL. ugh!!! I tried vocalizing my disdain for this policy with the reference librarian on staff and commented that I have never lost a CPL book and have no outstanding fines. They should have a separate policy regarding these popular books for those with exemplary records. The CPL librarian replied to my comments “Well if you left today with this book and got hit by a car and died, we would never get the book back.” Without missing a beat, I replied “My library and book lovin’ mother would ensure you’d get the book back. That’s why I have an exemplary borrowing record in the first place.” No further comments were exchanged, and I walked away sad that the public library fails to allow the public to borrow books on the city’s history.
Kelly (KH) tried posting this: =================== Some libraries keep records of your history, for limited amounts of time, but generally not public ones. Once the book is back in the library, it’s off your record. Once the fi-ne is paid, it’s off your record. I was disappointed to find this out, too. I was hoping to find a list of all the stuff I checked out from age 5 to present, but no such luck. If you need a reference book to take home, try asking if you can “Interlibrary Lo-an” it from a library that will let you take it home. Colleges are usually more interested in helping with this. ===================
fyi: “lo-an” was the bad word there.