Up and into the car and I was on the road before 07:30. I arrived at the research library that I use before 09:00, and had to wait for a few moments in a little queue of cars to be let into the car park. A fresh new readers’ pass, lasting only one week, awaited me in reception. In fact I had goofed. The regulations only allow you a free one-week pass once a year, and I had forgotten this. Next time I will purchase a one-month pass!
The IT there is terrible – the library seems to have been cheated badly by its supplier – but it did not seem to have changed since last time. So I was able to work with a minimum of pain, to my surprise and delight. I had the Microsoft Authenticator app on my phone, I knew the right userid and password. Indeed I was even able to log into the terminal (“kiosk”!) which is reserved purely for adding money to your card, in order to use the photocopiers. Even better, I found that I had left quite a bit of money on the account last time, so I refrained from adding more. I knew from past experience that money on university library accounts which are used only infrequently can vanish!
I went in search of the book that I needed. To my surprise, the two main staircases have been renamed “alpha” and “beta”, although I know not why. Despite the name change, the lift that I needed to use was not working. But it was only a single flight of stairs to my floor, and I found the volume that I wanted easily enough. The smell of the cleaning fluid, and dust, brought back memories of thirty years ago, when I was just starting out on the voyage that produced this blog. Here at least time has not corroded.
I found a photocopier which was working, with no queue, and I was able to photocopy the whole book – only 80 pages – in peace, checking each page afterwards in case I had inadvertently cropped the text. Longer ago there was a dedicated a photocopier room, with at least five photocopiers. But since then, someone has decided that it would be better to abolish this, and to distribute the copiers in obscure places around the corridors. Arriving early has its advantages here too. I would imagine that the copiers are mainly used by visitors, as students can just borrow the books and scan them in their rooms.
I had not had breakfast, so I made a visit to the library tea-room. This was a little odd, although much the same as before. There were only snacks, unfortunately, but I made do. For some reason large new portraits of unknown women (and a few African men) had been mounted Soviet-style on the walls. There was also a great number of posters, each instructing customers how to throw away their paper plates, used cans, and a great list of other possibilities, in specified containers. The text was detailed and prescriptive, and too small for eyes like mine to read. The whole effect was somewhat East German.
Then out, into a slight rain. The time was only about 10:30, but the car park was already full to brimming, as I had known that it might be. A car cruising around hopelessly, searching for a space, was glad to take my space. The lack of parking is hard on visitors who are not local.
Rather than return the way that I came, out of curiosity, I cut through the town to return. It is probably ten years or more since I did so. At one time I worked there, and even went to church there sometimes, so some of the roads are familiar. The areas I passed through looked as if they had been ravaged by local government maladministration. The roads had been left unrepaired for a decade or more. At one major junction the whole road surface had buckled up, and I saw cars picking their way cautiously through it. On the road sides the weeds now grew so freely everywhere that at one point I wondered if I was on the right road.
I came to one major junction, once very familiar, where memory recorded a garage – always slightly incongruously situated – but instead I found a characterless block of flats. Indeed I saw a whole district of blocks of new flats, little windows in flat exteriors. The effect was again very Soviet. Surely if such things are needed, they could be built in local stone and in keeping with the heritage of the town?
Change is inevitable, but I think that the whole place could do with a bit more change in a positive direction.
Fortunately I was home by lunchtime, and a MacDonald’s with medium fries banished any gloom. The photocopies have passed through the scanner, and a PDF resulting has just gone through Abbyy Finereader. In this area at least there is improvement!