By James Zeruk, Jr. Santa Monica
When our new, multi-million dollar Main Library finally opened, I thought we were in for a pleasant experience. Let’s take stock of a few things, shall we?
Within weeks of the grand re-opening staff was replacing many of the new wooden chairs with new wooden chairs. It seems the original chairs were defective and flimsy (my dismay was met by a rude comment from a staff member).
Naturally, as Santa Monica considers itself a progressive green city, we must have a green library. Let me define green library: Warm water from drinking fountains, large puddles of urine constantly collecting on the floors of the men’s restrooms due to the flush-less urinals (staff cleans the restrooms many times a day, so they are certainly not the problem — third-world mentality wrapped in Al Gore theology is).
I’ve yet to see a single conservative guest author come to the library for lectures and book signings. Yet, we have had dozens of left-wing, Bush-hating authors hold court, some twice. Even those freaky, weird UFO-worshiping Raelians get to come and pitch their snake oil, but God forbid if a Republican author should be asked to discuss his or her book and common sense.
The wireless is awful, actually, it’s worse than awful. I have a new laptop with all the latest bells and whistles. It works absolutely perfect at any other library or city wi-fi. Only at the Main Library can a fellow hit “SEND” and lose his e-mails to another dimension (maybe the Raelians got them on the mother ship).
Only at our new, state-of-the-art library can it take as much as 10 minutes to connect to the city agreement page. Only here occurs the never-ending battle to figure out why the hell the connection drops and Google keeps muscling in when I hit “SEARCH” from my Yahoo. Only here does the city and library wi-fI drop out completely and without warning, only to be replaced by some bizarre-looking city employee password-protected page, thus shutting off public access until the next day.
Don’t even get me started on those new microfilm machines, which a NASA scientist can’t figure out. The old machines are great! Easy and quick, archaic, and yet many times more reliable than the new ones. Less is more, people.
Well, I could add more gripes, but I must get this letter to the Pony Express rider, much more faster and efficient than … well, you know.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 17, 2008. Read the original PDF.