The Travails Of A Librarian

"You would be surprised of you could be here for a day at the constant demands for a good book,"says the librarian of one of Maine's largest libraries in the 1900's."Everyone has a different definition of what a good book is. No dry good worker ever had harder work to satisfy a customer than the loaning clerk to find something readable for her patrons. One woman wants a small book, one something that is easy to hold; another wants a thick book, something that will keep her busy long enough to pay for taking it home. Another wants a book about the right size to put in her handbag. Or one says, 'Red covers please, I never saw a poor book in red covers.'One complains that the print is too small or too close. I must read the titles for her as she has forgotten her glasses. Books are refused because there is too much margin, or because there aren't quotation marks enough. But the greater trouble of all is the woman who wants the same book as her friend but she doesn't remember the author or the title. But it was so big, something about the revolutionary war, and she thinks she could recognize the picture on the front if she could see it."