F3 The Library

     In movies and TV shows, libraries are sacred halls of knowledge rife with forgotten nooks and corners housing ancient tomes of forbidden lore. The quirky but charismatic bookworm character finds the absolutely vital piece of information in the tome—complete with eerie diagram—right in the nick of time.

      The modern library is nothing like that, and getting access to the special collections area requires specialized letters following your name. I can't do that. Moreover, such books of arcane lore don't end up in libraries that allow people to root through them.
      Public libraries are useless for this kind of thing, too. The best place for research is in a university library. It's nearly impossible to muscle away a grad student researching folklore of Asian Steppe near the end of the semester, not to mention trying to find a computer just so I can look up a call number. Nevermind I need to research an ancient Mesopotamian god that will unleash a pestilence on the city unless I can figure out how to stop him. I have to wait on the copy machine because the engineering geek decided to copy all two hundred pages of a tech journal because he doesn't want to come back tomorrow.
      At least university libraries were open late and served coffee.