Damn Library

Now for a rare personal story. I am really pissed with my university’s library. I was at the library today and I got bored of “studying” so I decided to see what baseball books they had. I found the surprisingly large section and began to look through the books. Then I nearly shit my pants.

They had a copy of a 1982 Bill James Baseball Abstract. That probably means nothing to most people, but if you know about baseball you’ll know what a rare find that is. Bill James, even if you question some of his conclusions, is a god in the analytic baseball community. His story is fascinating, but I won’t go into here. Suffice to say he began self-publishing annuals in 1977 that were revolutionary. James created new, and better, stats to analyse players with and he investigated myths that often got bandied about in the baseball world (and still do), and tried to determine if they are true. He’s made huge strides in all sorts of fields from aging analysis to measuring defensive ability to predicting future performance.

Anyhow, his old baseball abstracts, which he stopped publishing in 1988, I believe, are extremely rare to find (I’ve never seen one in person) and only seen a couple for sale on the internet that were quite expensive. So as I was freaking out I looked at the back and saw that this book hadn’t been checked out since May, 1989.

Then I got a brainstorm. I could buy the book from the library, and they could use my money to go buy a book on hydraulic engines or the philosophy of impressionist art, and I would get to own my very own abstract. So I went to the checkout counter to ask the guy and he said, “We don’t sell books.” So I pointed out that it hasn’t been checked out since 1989, and seeing as how it contains baseball stats from 1981, I doubt it will ever be used again. He replied, “Sorry, we just don’t have procedure in place to sell books at this time. If we decide to remove a book from circulation, we will give it to charity.”

What bullshit. No poor kid is going to want a 1982 Bill James Baseball Abstract. He’ll just use it as toilet paper. So I went back and read one of the other baseball books for an hour and then I asked a different librarian how much they charge for a lost book. “$100,” she says. “Or else you can see the librarian to try to work something out.”

So I checked out the book. I might fake having lost it and I’ll see what they say, but it’ll have to be casual, because I obviously don’t want to pay $100 for it, so I’ll have to use words like “I think I lost it” and “you certainly look lovely today.”

Man, this is a book of baseball stats about the 1981 season that hasn’t been checked out in 15 years. It has no use to anyone in a university setting. I could come back to Queen’s in 20 years and I bet the book would still be there, and wouldn’t have been read since 2004. Stupid lending library that doesn’t double as a bookstore.