Back to the Library

I'm not sure which shocks me more: That for the second time in two months (and the second time in three years) I had to resort to the campus library to get hold of a reference, or that the book was actually checked out. Technically, the article was available online, thanks to the magic of Google Books, but I don't actually like this resource; I prefer my downloadable .pdfs, particularly since I'm too cheap (grad student stipend, after all) to pay for internet access at home.

I think the fact that it was checked out is the shocker. Generally speaking, anything that starts "Multidimensional" from the 1990s is probably not high on anyone's reading list. I recalled it, quite easily, but then had to go back an reassure myself that it was due in 2008 and wasn't lost sometime years ago. I'm actually curious who has it out, and whether they're in my field/department. Odds are, it's sitting in my advisor's office, or the other faculty member involved in this project's office, but there was no way to tell. My own experiences working at my undergraduate library tell me this may or may not be returned as recalled, since professors often take books for their year-long checkout period, renew them automatically regardless of use, and come to think of them as their own property.

It's not as if I'm eager to read the 40-page article starting with "Multidimensional" myself...