library woes

Inshallah, infidels.
NSA dudes, I assume you internet and email folks are separate from the library records people, but you must have coffee breaks together. Or maybe you go out and smoke together (what, I wouldn’t presume).
Anyway, if you wouldn’t mind passing this on to the library department, I’d be grateful.
Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda (just to keep your attention).
I’ve got a suspicion that the folks at the Central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library are lazy. I’m sure you guys at the NSA know all about sinecures (because, come on, we all know how many terrorists you will be catching by tracing library records and emails and phone calls and whatnot).
Anyway, every time I request a book to be sent to my branch (you know which one, I’m sure, on top of your game as you are), I get a notice in my email saying they can’t locate the book. And we both know this is bullshit, right?
Without fail. If I request a book from another branch, it arrives eventually. Or at least it takes a week or so for the email saying they couldn’t find it to arrive, making it appear that they’ve at least made an effort to locate my requested material.
Not so at the Central branch. Request made, two days pass, inbox says: can’t find it.
I was at said branch last Wednesday and checked out several Tintin books (Madge was sick, you may recall, and needed entertainment – she’s better now, thanks for your concern, NSA folk). Of the four Tintin’s we were checking out, the checkout lady confiscated two, saying they were on hold for someone else. (The checkout lady, btw, was very nice and recommended her grandmother’s West-Indian cure-all of rice-water for Madge’s chickenpox.)
But there were two other copies of each Tintin ON THE SHELF. Lazy sumbitches, I tell you. If that’s not proof, I don’t know what is. That’s the only way they fill requests at that branch. If someone happens to try to check out or return a copy of the requested item, they’ll snag it and in turn lose it in transit on the way to the requester (I’ve got a book coming to me, the record for which has been saying “in transit” for a month now).
Of the places I’ve lived recently, Minneapolis has been best about getting holds to the customer. SF has been fast, too, but often the items turned up lost – which isn’t surprising, given the abuse the branches seem to take there. New York was fairly crappy about it and Brooklyn isn’t much better.
And why, in Allah’s name, is the Brooklyn library system separate from the New York one (which includes Queens and the Bronx, if I’m not mistaken)? Is Brooklyn too good for Manhattan’s books? Won’t Manhattan share? It’s anti-semitism, isn’t it?
But listen to me, complaining about a free service. Well, free, at least. Which is my point.
It must infuriate you to no end so have the libraries by run so sloppily. Don’t you think it’s an effort to thwart your investigations? You might look into it.
And if you happen to run across a copy of the Oxford Anthology of English Verse (very sub-versive stuff, hyuk, hyuk), send it my way. You know where to find me.
Good luck in nabbing the bad guys and convincing yourselves you’re the good guys, NSA.
Night, night.