For over a decade the library campaigned that people should get receipts when they return books. And for good reason, people make mistakes. Now the library refuses to give receipts when books are returned. I must congratulate the library that the clerks and librarians at the Pomonok branch follow the library’s rules perfectly. They would make Max Weber’s hall of fame as the perfect mindless bureaucrats that follow the rules undeviatingly and senselessly to suit the convenience of the library, not the patrons. When I asked to get a receipt when I returned a book today or witness it being zapped returned, they insisted I put the book into the book slot.

I told them after paying $32.95 to pay for In War Times by Kathleen Ann Goonan for item# taken out by Fred xxx15, I was not going to trust that because I put the book into the book slot it would be marked returned. They answered we take out the books every half hour. There is an old saying that if you repeat the same thing, you can expect the same results; it is crazy to think otherwise; and I was not about to trust that just because I put the book into the book slot that it would be marked returned.

I went to the Forest Hills branch where I could witness the book being zapped returned inside the book slot. Then I asked the librarian for a receipt of the books that I still have out. Apparently, you don’t give receipts for books returned anymore; instead they will give you a list of the books that you have out.

Now library has a decision to make, the Pomonk model or the Forest Hills model on how books are returned. Or the library can program the computers to give book receipts return again so neither the library nor the patron has to say “take my word for it.”. As far as I concerned, the library has wasted the taxpayers money in supposedly state of the art machines to charge and return books when bureaucrats follow mindless rules that make no sense and frustrate the intended purpose of the machines. Until the day comes when the library patron can return the books himself personally using one of these machines, perhaps it might be good to go back to the “old fashioned way” of issuing a receipt. No private company could get way with such ill logical thinking or expect to stay in business by treating customers in such a fashion..

Oh, by the way I did send a check for In War Times book via certified mail on March 11, 2008. I have not received the return receipt yet. My friend Fred says his card still shows the book is out.

What will the bureaucratic mind think up next to make things worse...