Sweets and bugs and books
Jul. 22nd, 2021 08:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkOne of my colleagues finally got her Austrian citizenship yesterday, so today I got her an "Austria starter pack" consisting of Mannerschnitten, Mozartkugeln, Almdudler, and a baseball hat saying "No kangaroos in Austria." (And I will invite her for a Wiener schnitzel sometime soon, of course.) She loved it :)
DD and I are currently house-sitting for my parents (they have a garden!) and today I had to remove way too many southern green shield bugs from their tomatoes. Ugh. I had never seen those bugs before and hopefully won't see them again soon.
Sadly, my childhood public library branch is going to close. Well, technically "move," but as I found out today "my" branch had 22,000 books (27,000 a few years ago) and the other one that had to close had 11,000, while the new library will only have 20,000. (Instead more comfortable furniture and more computers… and a "library of things," which I am admittedly curious about.) I mostly use the online library these days and had not been to this branch for several years, but when I coincidentally found out that it closes (in August! I almost missed it!) I had to pay it another visit. I used to go there very often as a kid and teenager, with a shopping cart so I could borrow 20 books at once, and I knew it very well. The librarian who has worked there for 26 years still recognized me, and I was glad to meet her again. (She is very unhappy about the move.) I can also visit the new branch once it opens sometime in fall, of course, but it's further away. (Yes, not too far from an underground station, but still too far for children to walk to, and they closed both branches nearby, so for children in the area it sucks.)
DD and I are currently house-sitting for my parents (they have a garden!) and today I had to remove way too many southern green shield bugs from their tomatoes. Ugh. I had never seen those bugs before and hopefully won't see them again soon.
Sadly, my childhood public library branch is going to close. Well, technically "move," but as I found out today "my" branch had 22,000 books (27,000 a few years ago) and the other one that had to close had 11,000, while the new library will only have 20,000. (Instead more comfortable furniture and more computers… and a "library of things," which I am admittedly curious about.) I mostly use the online library these days and had not been to this branch for several years, but when I coincidentally found out that it closes (in August! I almost missed it!) I had to pay it another visit. I used to go there very often as a kid and teenager, with a shopping cart so I could borrow 20 books at once, and I knew it very well. The librarian who has worked there for 26 years still recognized me, and I was glad to meet her again. (She is very unhappy about the move.) I can also visit the new branch once it opens sometime in fall, of course, but it's further away. (Yes, not too far from an underground station, but still too far for children to walk to, and they closed both branches nearby, so for children in the area it sucks.)
no subject
Date: 2021-07-23 02:42 pm (UTC)I'd echo what the other librarians are saying above — closing branches of a public library system is often a bad sign, and I'm sorry to hear that your childhood library is closing. My first childhood library moved branches in 1993, and then the new branch closed for good in 2007, which meant that basically a quarter of the city had no public library after that point.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-23 03:10 pm (UTC)From what I've heard, our office of immigration is not quite as bad as the UK one but still pretty bad, so no longer having to deal with them is worth a celebration on its own.
I do understand why they would close one branch and open a new one instead - the new one is in an area that's currently being heavily developed, the other old branch was quite small and both were rather cramped compared with newer ones, the new one will also have designated spaces to just sit and read and there's been more demand for public spaces where people can hang out without having to consume anything, a new library is a prestige project for the district etc. - but it sucks that it's two and turned into a downgrade.