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From: dws@mit-eddie.UUCP (Don Saklad)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: libraries in metropolitan Boston
Message-ID: <1693@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 27-Apr-84 11:23:06 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.1693
Posted: Fri Apr 27 11:23:06 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Apr-84 09:44:45 EST
References: <1691@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 30

BPL won't hand you a library card

	I was interested in the April 2 article "Boston's
library at a crossroads" by Richard Higgins.  One of the unfriendly
policies of the library is the rule that all new library cards
be mailed to one's residence.

	The library will not give your card to you over the counter,
although they will accept some pretty flimsy ID to prove you deserve
to have one mailed to you, such as a Star Market check cashing card
with the new address pasted over the old one.

	Unfortunately, the Post Office mistakenly returned
my card twice over a period of six weeks to the library
as "addressee unknown".  I tried each time to have my card
given to me over the counter, but was refused this courtesy
even though I brought my lease, driver's license, telephone bill
and the Star Market card to prove who I was and where I lived.

	Obviously, the library is not interested in servicing
potential users, nor do the supervisory personnel
seem to have the ability, authority or even the desire to bend a rule given
pretty good criteria and ID for doing so.  It's particularly infuriating
since city taxpayers pay for these so called services.

Boston		JUDITH HILDEBRANDT



			--Boston Globe, daily newspaper, Mon., 4/16/84, p. 17