Saturday, February 6, 2010

"You're pretty cocky for someone whose job is obsolete thanks to the internet."

As much as I love my Parks and Recreation with its smart "dealing with the public" humor, I couldn't help but notice in this week's episode when they go to the library, the circ clerk swipes a supposed library card with a magnetic strip through one of the DVD unlocking/locking mechanisms -- which is not a card reader.

Librarian doing it wrong

In fact, most library cards that I've encountered all use barcodes and not magnetic strips, and would need a barcode scanner (though my very first card, which I still have somewhere, was printed on cardstock and had a metal plate in it). In the closing credits, the show thanks LA County Public Library, since I assume they taped the library scene there instead of building a set, but none of the library staffers showed them how the desk equipment actually worked? Look at me being all nit-picky!

The library scene fun starts around 7:58:

3 comments:

  1. I saw that too! I was wondering what the hell they were doing. Have none of them been to a public library?

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  2. Ha! That's awesome -- even someone only vaguely familiar with related accessories can definitely, by looking, tell that that's ridiculous. Excellent heads-up!

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  3. I also saw that and laughed and laughed. I hope they were doing it on purpose so the librarians among the audience would snicker and ignore the whole bit where the circ clerk violates Lesley's right to privacy and also the fact that the library is evil.

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