u/bekahthesixth

I was thinking about how many episodes this season have had more than the standard three contestants — Rulette 2 is really the only one to have three game players and no one else involved (not counting Paul/Ash/Nico). It’s like 6:30 in the morning my time, so obviously I needed to crunch the numbers.

Feel free to disagree with my math, but in the 8 episodes so far, there have been an average of 5 contestants per episode (defined as people who are able to win the game) and an average of 14.875 performers who appear on camera per episode (not counting Sam, although I guess it’s 15.875 with him included). That’s gotta be a record, right?

Edit: my math was in fact wrong! There have only been seven episodes this season, so it’s actually 5.7 contestants and 18.1 performers

I am the ILL coordinator in an academic library and I have an approximately bi-annual discussion/argument with one of my librarians. It’s been years at this point, so I doubt we’ll ever resolve it, but I am still stewing about our most recent conversation and I could use some outside opinions.

It tends to bubble up when an ILL loan comes back damaged or in poor condition. I am sensitive to repair and replacement costs (of course!) but I tend to think that that is part of general library circulation, and not a huge deal. My coworker thinks that these incidents mean we should limit ILL lending.

In addition to being frustrated by him never giving a clear criteria for what shouldn’t be sent out (more on that later), I also just disagree philosophically. I think these books should be used! If a book is available to circulate to our students and faculty, why shouldn’t it be available to lend via ILL?

In the most recent case, a book came back with damage and he noted that since we’ve owned the book (25 years, assuming we bought it soon after it was published) it had been sent out on ILL six or seven times but hadn’t been checked out by any of our patrons. This is a real problem for him but I guess I don’t see why? Why is it better to sit on our shelf not being used when it could be loaned out and like, be useful? (also if none of our patrons have needed it in 25 years do we really need to spend the money to replace it? but that’s maybe a different conversation)

Another one came back with some spine damage and he was upset because it was about a major historical figure but before that figure had really become famous. Besides the philosophical piece, I don’t know how to implement what he wants. I do check the condition of a book before I lend it, and I don’t send anything out in poor shape, and we have a few other restrictions (nothing published in the current year, no international loans) but beyond that, if it’s in our circulating collection, I view it as fair game. I am an ILL department of one and I loan out more than 1000 books in a year, in addition to scanning, lending articles and ebook chapters, and then all of that but on the borrowing side (which is slightly higher volume than our lending). I just straight up don’t have time to do deep research on every book I lend, and I need firmer criteria than just “use your best judgment” because, well, I already am!

Anyway sorry for the wall of text. Am I crazy? Is he? Has anyone dealt with a situation like this and has some suggestions? I thought about asking the ILL listserv but I don’t know how professional it would be to complain about a coworker under my real name and with my work email.