Fuck! Return your fucking library books!
TO THE STUDENT who borrowed Alexander Wendt’s seminal Social Theory of International Politics from Morisset Library for almost a full two weeks in November: fuck you—but ultimately, thank you.
I should probably start at the beginning. In November, I was writing the term paper for my fourth-year seminar in international relations and global politics. This doozie of an essay was supposed to trace the impact of Wendt’s book on international relations theory across five years and was due on Nov. 25. I had read the book in October in order to prepare for further research. Knowing that it was the only copy in the library, I considered renewing it for weeks on end, but I decided to bring it back just in case someone else needed it.
Fast forward to the middle of November: you borrow it from the library. With my research completed around that same time, I was ready to borrow the book again to get the particular quotes that I needed and start writing. I checked the library’s catalogue online and saw that you had Wendt’s book until the due date Nov. 25.
“Fuck you,” I murmured before requesting a hold on the book.
Fuck you, not only because there is only a single copy of that book in Morisset Library, but also, as I would later discover, because there are no other copies in any branch of the Ottawa Public Library and Google Books had only parts of it (dozens of random pages were missing because that’s just how Google Books rolls). I came incredibly close to purchasing the book. Cut to Nov. 23: I’m panicking because conspicuously absent from my now almost-finished essay about the impact of Wendt’s book are citations from the book itself.
Then you brought the book back a day ahead of its due date. For this, I have to graciously thank you. After getting the email that Wendt’s book had been returned, I rushed to the library, inserted the quotes I needed within six hours, put the finishing touches on the essay, and after a final edit the next day, returned the book about 30 minutes before submitting the term paper. Seriously, if you hadn’t brought the book back before Nov. 25, I wouldn’t have been able to finish the essay and I would have had to pretend to come down with H1N1 flu symptoms.
To the students at the University of Ottawa: from the story above it’s clear that the lesson is never borrow a book for longer than you need it. Too many of you just skim a book to get two or three quotes for an essay and then let the book lie under some pizza box until it is due. Even though it’s your right to take out any book for the full two weeks, you should be courteous to your fellow students and bring it back the moment you’re done with it. With approximately 35,000 students at this university, it’s easy to fuck up someone’s semester simply by holding onto a single book for a long time. It’s especially important to return a book when it’s essay-writing season and particularly when there is only a single copy in the library (moreso if the book is a seminal work in your discipline and many students might need it to write term papers).
If you get into the habit of borrowing a book only for as long as you need it, know that fellow students you’ll never meet who once cursed your existence will thank you for your good sense and forgive you wholeheartedly for having made them break into cold sweats in the days days before their essays are due.
