You always remember your first time

I did something today that I've never done before. I was both excited and nervous about it. Would it really be all that its chalked up to be?

I checked out books from the university library.

Yeah. Whew! I had almost made it six semester without checking one out. Hell, I've barley used it at all. I think maybe two-three times I've used the reference books. But never, never had I wandered up to the third floor to the main collection when I wasn't on a tour. It's amazing up there! Not so much the endless stacks of books that actually turn out to be useful but it's so flippin' quite! There is an abundance of good seating where you don't have to worry about a lot of foot traffic, noise from the cafe, the book alarm going off, rude people on their cell phones. It's a whole different world up there.

I walked out with five books and good news, didn't set the book alarm off. I'm always nervous about those type of things.

I just can't get over the quietness! I'm just breaking down barriers left and right. For the first time a few weeks ago I went to the first floor, the second floor is the main floor fyi, to look at the periodical collection. A microfilm machine! I USED ONE! Ok so not me the librarian did and well we didn't end up needing it but wow! Those things are fucking cool! Seeing the old front pages of the New York Times from the 1940s. Hell, the collection goes all the way back to the 1800s sometime. That floor is a little scary though. All dark and forbidden looking. No windows. In most circles it's a basement but we're too cool for that I guess.

I pity the poor students of years past when they didn't have things like ProQuest, EBSCOHost and JSTOR. Without those, my streak of not using the library for what it's meant for would have been a lot shorter.

Bad news though. Half the books I checked out are super old so the smell. Uck. Me no likely old smelly books. Some are so old, that they don't say property of UW-W Library they say property of Wisconsin State College Whitewater. I like the sound of Wisconsin State College better... And huh. Who woulda known that the Andersen to dish out the dough to earn him naming rights to the book motel is Harold.


I love how protective the library is of the books. Not only do they stamp the name on one side, they do it on all three. Like you can scrap the stamp off, come on people.

Ok I got a shit ton to do home slices.