Dear ILL Answerman,
Why is there ILL?
Søren K. in Copenhagen Denmark
Søren,
On one level there is ILL because no single library can contain all the books that a person might want to read. This begs the question of why a person might want to read a book that isn't contained in his or her local library. Perhaps they find all the books in their local library essentially meaningless and are driven to seek meaning from books in faraway places instead looking inwards and creating their own meaning. Hopefully this meaningless behavior will continue so the ILL Answerman can keep his job.
The ILL Answerman.
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6 comments:
Or, maybe they just like football
Or they grew up on the Olympic Peninsula and reading isn't an option.
Anonymous, as you are no doubt aware, Jean-Paul Sartre once said that "In football everything is complicated by the presence of the other team." This principle, whether applied to football, ILL, or life is equally valid: people, if they exist, are complicated.
Bowlingjoe, to extend the philosophical theme of this post, which came first: the Olympic Peninsulans aversion to reading, or their love of football?
That's a difficult question to answer since I can't confirm that they have a love of football, but perhaps the following statement of logic will shed some light on the psyche of the Port Angelino:
Junk car is to the Port Angelino what gold is to the prospector.
As someone intimately involved in interlibrary loan, I find it confusing that we perpetuate the activity for the sole purpose of the gainful employment of Captain ILL. It is my understanding that the Captain is in much demand, that he has even been contacted as a possible replacement for Tom Daschle in the Obama cabinet. We mere mortals stand in awe of the Captain and expect that he will leave the interlibrary loan world at any moment.
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