Mr. Magoo has left the building

That cherubic member of the highly functional and harmonious previous Board, Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler, called it:

The most disagreeable of Toronto Public Library Board appointees, Stephen Dulmage, has resigned from the board, I'm told.—
Adam C-F (@AdamCF) May 19, 2012

The secretary to the dysfunctional and fractious current Board, Nancy Marshall, confirmed last night (2012.05.22 20:25) that “Mr. Dulmage resigned from the TPL Board on May 2, 2012.”

Next step: Go full-on TTC and replace everyone but the Chair. Don’t think it can’t happen. (It already did.)

Retired Beaches librarians

I was disappointed to learn that the retirements of three helpful librarians at the city’s most beautiful branch, Beaches, took place during the strike! Well, Godspeed, ladies.

Interior design (II)

Memphis-like modular seating.

980 minutes

Here we have Berlin Alexanderplatz.

• Seven DVDs

• Booklet

• Runtime of 980 minutes (16⅓ hours), which everyone but native German speakers must attentively watch because it is subtitled

You have one week to plow through all of this – but three weeks to borrow a pedometer you’ll glance at a few times a day. (Nine if you renew it twice.)

Oh, but it’s all about not making terribly sensitive people wait for holds. Your point being? I borrowed this thing right off the shelf at Yorkville. I didn’t have to “wait,” but there’s no way I can finish it in a week. Nor could anyone.

The longer the library insists on its failed policy that multi-disc DVD sets must of course have the same loan period as compact discs, children’s books, and pedometers, the more intransigent it seems. Language-learning DVDs already circulate for three weeks, so this is hardly unprecedented.

TPL management isn’t going to fix this problem without an actual order. Comin’ right up.

Interior design (I)

Sheila has impeccable taste in carpeting, does she not?