Thursday, November 3, 2011

Library Shame

It might be shocking to some of you, but not very many esteemed engineering graduate schools also specialize in marine (mammal) biology. One of the rare exceptions is Oregon State University, which has an excellent marine mammal program and a respectable mechanical engineering department. With all that (both of the criteria satisfied), how could Sarah and I not apply to OSU?

The application for OSU was unlike any of the other applications I filled out that year. Most applications can be completed entirely online – transcript requests, GRE scores, and letters of recommendation are all submitted electronically. Apparently the state of Oregon exists in a space-time paradox where it is perpetually 1993 (just like that movie Groundhog Day, where coincidentally it is also perpetually 1993). The OSU applications required that I go to Trinity and pick up a transcript in person, then photocopy (not scan) it twice, then mail (not fax and definitely not email) those copies to the admissions office. If I recall correctly, their online application was only compatible with Netscape Navigator.

I used to love watching the animated logo.
Being lazy, as I am, I did not want to stray far from my apartment to make the already inconvenient photocopies. I racked my brain for minutes before I realized that there is probably an old Xerox machine at the library down the street. The Tobin Library was maybe two blocks away from my apartment, and while I had never been there before, I was exactly right that like every other public library, it contained an old coin-operated copier.

See?  The library really is not very far away.

I thought that the library would probably be empty on a Tuesday at 4pm, but instead it was filled with preteens. Apparently the Tobin library is where Garner Middle School students go after school until their parents come to pick them up. With all the adolescents talking and yelling and loitering and using the computers (some might have even been reading) the librarian was completely swamped, so I decided I could find the copier on my own.

The Tobin Library information window conveniently covered Garner Middle School.

As I wandered through the shelves, I soon realized that I was being followed by a guy dressed in a white shirt and black pants. He couldn’t have been a day older than 18 and as I rounded the next corner I got a good look at him. He was extremely skinny, had a patchy mustache, and his shirt indicated that he was “Library Security.” On the scale of intimidating security, where the secret service is listed as the most intimidating, library security is the complete opposite end of the spectrum. This guy’s job is to protect books that the library loans out for FREE.

The intimidation scale.

I remember thinking, once I’d found the copier, “Why is that guy watching me? Do I look like I am going to steal some books or something?” Then it dawned on me – I was a single adult male in a library full of unsupervised children. Worst of all, since I couldn’t find the copier right away, I had been lurking in the shelves! I was that SKETCHY GUY!! How do you explain to a security guard that you’re not really a creep without sounding like more of a creep?

Once my copies had finished, I quickly left the Tobin Library never to return again.