Sweets and bugs and books

[schneefink]

One 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.)

Comments

[sholio]

Awwww, that's delightful! Congrats to your friend!

[naye]

Really sad to hear about branch libraries closing. That's never a good state of affairs. Of course your old librarian is unhappy with that kind of move.

On the bright side a "library of things" can be super cool! One of the recent LIS doctoral theses at my uni was on that topic.

[yhlee]

The "Austrian starter pack" is super sweet of you, and congrats to your colleague!

Sorry to hear about the library branch closure.

[schneefink]

She is mostly relieved that (most of) the bureaucratic bullshit is over. We have several people in the office who have had dealings with the MA 35, the ~office for integration, and none of them have anything good to say.

[schneefink]

Apparently the original plan was to just close the smaller branch library, and they suspect they are only closing the second one (on just a few months' notice) because they want to sell the building. Boo.

It does sound potentially convenient! Especially for people who don't have family with a big cellar and tools etc. in the same city. I found out that there is already one "library of things" in the city, and they have among other things a game controller, which I've been thinking of trying out, so maybe I'll check it out in the near future.

[ambyr]

No kangaroos? Man, I’m going to have to rethink all my post-covid travel plans!

[schneefink]

Thanks :) She was born here and has lived here for over twenty years, so it should have been just a formality, but apparently there were many many forms involved and it took about a year.

It sucks. I was glad I could at least visit it once more before it closed, but of course they have most of the books in boxes already so it looked very empty and sad.

[schneefink]

We do have kangaroos, actually! In the Vienna zoo. Well, technically red-necked wallabies, but they are called kangaroos in German so it totally counts.

[ambyr]

Oh, well then. Austria’s back on the table!

[schneefink]

Glad to hear it xD

[musesfool]

Oh that sucks about the library! I'm glad you got to visit one last time.

[jae]

Austria starter pack! <3

-J

[mllesatine]

I just had to check if the old librabry in the town I went to school in is still open. It's in this wonderful city villa with a big old wooden stair chase. I spend so much time there and even though it was very small I always found interesting books. I once stole a book from there because I was too shy to borrow it. :)

[writerkit]

If the librarian is unhappy about it that's the sure sign it's based in cost-saving and will likely result in other problems. Sometimes those moves are about the building falling down around you, but the librarians will be *pleased* with those kinds of moves.

[dolorosa_12]

I love the idea of the Austria starter pack (and as an Australian obviously laughed at the kangaroos). Congratulations to your colleague — citizenship applications in many countries can be really complicated, even for people who've lived in the country for years.

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.

[schneefink]

Me too (and now I wonder if I should have taken a picture.)

[schneefink]

It has the important stuff xD

[schneefink]

That sounds like a great atmosphere for a library. So is it still open?

[schneefink]

Yeah, the building is old but not that old. Apparently the librarians only found out about the move half a year ago and had to give away 12,000 books in six months.

[schneefink]

The kangaroos are a common misunderstanding xD

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.

[mllesatine]

It is, yes. Still in the same building as well. I really have to visit and check how much the interior has changed.

[schneefink]

Cool! You should :)

[michelel72]

I love your starter pack! Shame about the library, though. (I had a really pretty one for my teenage years, but I think it was destroyed in a hurricane.)

[schneefink]

Oh no, that's sad :( Did they not rebuild it?

[michelel72]

They built a replacement, further away from the coastline. (It was more or less across the highway from the beach.) I had long since moved away by the time that hurricane hit, but I still remember the marble-and-glass feeling of the old building and the curved staircase. You can see post-storm pictures here -- the "Gulfport" pictures are the ones for my old library.

[schneefink]

I am once again reminded that I'm glad we don't have hurricanes around here.