NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

with desperate house wives being twelve fucking episodes, the library check out being at three weeks made it managable.

and it took almost fucking six months to get the fourth season of six feet under. now i'm supposed to cram all my TV into a week??

fuck that!

oh and btw. the "that's my dog" 6ft under episode is the ultimate party ender. wan't people to leave? tell em they HAVE to see this episode, put it on, let the torture begin. LAME!!

my gf suggested we scratch it out on the DVD so no other library patron ever. EVER. has to watch that shit.

Huh; I figured you for an X-Files fan.

only in the 90s did I watch it religiously. there was a point around when moulder went missing and those stupid killer alien guys showed up where I said, dammit, this show sucks.

Send the library comment forms! They really read those things and it may make a difference.

naw, 3 weeks is too long. think of it as the library tripling the number of dvds. if it's not popular, you can always renew it. if it is, rent it.

the reason the library needs to shorten its loan length are *incessant patron complaints* about there not being enough movies available. it is an attempt to create a browsable (sp?) collection. so when you fill out the complaint, be nice. when you talk to the circ clerks & ref librarians, be nice.

the purchase and processing of DVDs is very, very expensive and they have a short shelf life as do their cases. they are freaking expensive.

and after you talk to the library folk and fill out the form, contact city hall/the mayor's office/ etc., and ask them to use some of the city surplus to fund the library and update the collection. then your library will happily do all the work necessary to include an adequate number of those new fangled DVD thingies we're hearing so much about these day.

you can't renew items on hold. which most DVDs that anyone wants to see are always on a long waiting list. if you only have one week to watch a box set of DVDs of say 12 hour long episodes, your going to have to return it unfinisshed.

one week maybe for single movies or single dvds, but there's got to be some leway for the forever long DVDs. one week is not enough time for all situations.

Even if you can't renew it, late fees are only 15 cents a day, costing you a grand total of $2.15 in late fees to keep a DVD set for 3 weeks instead of 1 week. Still beats the pants off of blockbuster.

Just take them home, make copies, and take them back. Watch at your leisure.

Then make more copies, and sell them on Broadway.

It's win-win.

just get netflix. or make a copy, then you only need it for one day and can give it back for someone else.

very selfish

The movies ARE available, you just have to wait for awhile. And once I have waited for my turn, I want to be able to watch the whole thing!

As an avid DVD borrower from the library, I don't see myself needing one movie for more than a week, so the new policy is perfectly fine by me. And besides, when you're in a hold list of 500+ for a new release, anything that cuts down the wait time is a plus.

I reserve two or three DVD boxed sets a year. I check my account status online and find myself 50th in line for one of the sets and 200th in line for the other, which seems like plenty of spacing, but somehow they manage to arrive for customer pickup on the same day.

The one-week checkout would be a problem for me only when two different DVD sets show up at once and both sets have to be watched and returned in the exact same week.

Whatever, it's still a way better deal than buying or renting the boxed sets or subscribing to HBO.

Why don't they just make the time you get some function of the length of the video?

Like if you borrow a single movie, you get a week. Borrow a 15-20 episode box set, get three weeks.

Or better yet, split up the box sets so more people can watch them at the same time.

that's a nice idea, and possible for a profit-based corporation, but beyond a disastrous, money-pit of irritation for a public non-profit that is already understaffed and underfunded.

i am not being an ass when i say this, but clearly people do not generally comprehend the expense and labor involved in library work. i know folks think we're these incredibly helpful hostesses, but i promise, it's a real job with lots of work attached to it.

for example, what chirstopher suggests:
there are almost 30,000 DVD and VHS titles in SPL holdings, *most* of those titles have multiple copies, meaning that there are *at least* 100,000 DVDs and VHS tapes in the SPL system. in order to divide series into individual cases, new cases would have to be bought, they cost money and break often, copies of covers would need to be made, and new RFID tags inserted, they are more than a buck each. what you're suggesting would cost more than a $100,000 in materials, nevermind employee time, in the first few months and we'd all rather see that spent on new materials.

as to your suggestion that longer movies have longer checkout periods: all items are managed by electronic records, check out length is based on item type (book versus magazine versus CD). therefore a second item type would have to be created for longer DVDs. then, every single DVD or VHS would have to be phsycially located and assessed by an employee to be long or short (because the length of a DVD, or VHS, recording is not searchable information - because there is no reason for it to be.) that would have to happen to every single one of the nearly 30,000 titles. once that determination was made, all of the old materials would have to be migrated from one item type to another, blah blah blah. do you want to be the poor circ clerk who has to explain that this VHS is due in a week, this DVD is due in 3 weeks, but that DVD is due in week?

A library friend of mine tells me that three weeks it too long to hog a DVD and that other people are waiting for them for what seems like forever. I'd say 10 days myself, but whatever. DVDs are popular so we all have to share.

Come budget time, support your local library! Write to the Mayor and tell him how much being able to check out DVDs at the library means to you. We need to hold the line on the collections budget!

Why do you need three weeks to see a set of DVD's? I never hear these complaints about the 5 day rental periods of video stores.

Consider yourselves fortunate that the library even lets you check out DVDs for free at all.

Just take them home, make copies, and take them back. Watch at your leisure.

Then make more copies, and sell them on Broadway.

It's win-win.

Except that you should give them away on Broadway, not sell them. That's the true spirit of the Internets: making shit available for free.

hey, as a library employee, i can totally sympathize, but we did not make the decision, Deborah Jacobs, the leader of the library with no heart, made the wonderous decision. go to the library ask for a comment form, direct it to her and tell her what u think. we have NO SAYING power in the matter, but they do listen to patrons, after all u guys give us the money to operate, so whine to her, no really....DO IT!! if u want it to change

hey, as a library employee, i can totally sympathize, but we did not make the decision, Deborah Jacobs, the leader of the library with no heart, made the wonderous decision. go to the library ask for a comment form, direct it to her and tell her what u think. we have NO SAYING power in the matter, but they do listen to patrons, after all u guys give us the money to operate, so whine to her, no really....DO IT!! if u want it to change