-Mandatory County Law Library-

Take the wrong elevator, and it's the firefighters' retirement fund office for you. The harried woman behind the desk will hand you a slip of paper with instructions.

"Go down to the 1st floor and over to the other bank of elevators, the ones closest to the snack shop and adjacent to the metal detectors you passed through before. Only these two elevators go to the Law area on the 9th floor.
Love,
Harried woman behind desk."

You get into the elevator, and a pair of mascots and their entourage of city employees step in with you. As the doors close, you look longing over their harried perms at the Marriage License offices. You didn't see them before because a local high school is touring the facilities, and adolescent angst irks you all the more when you're taken as one of them.

One of the mascots is a Dalmatian with a fireman's hat and matching red suspenders. He sees your slip of paper through his mesh mouth and chortles deep within his felt skull. The frog - no, insect - is green, shorter, and with half-a-dozen appendages. Later you would remember this represents the anti-litter campaign.

"Time for me to behead myself," says the Dalmatian, and the head beneath grins through a gray mustachio, and grayer, furrier eyebrows. The bug attempts to raise her headpiece, and does so just enough for you to see the wearer's short blond hair, the strands at the nape of the neck reflecting clean dew.

All of them exit on two, and the pair of mascots plunk down their Exo-skeleton heads at the sounds of children nearby.

You continue to nine, where you are struck by your own attention to all details, major and minor. The heaters are running noisily, powerfully. To put your hands on one for more than a few seconds is to redden your flesh. The windows are one-quarter of the way open; evidently the temperature dropped enough to warrant the use of the heaters without the consistent coldness this level of heat counters.

It's nice inside the library itself, though. This law library is quieter than you're used to, and the patrons are, to a man, dressed in business attire, even though all are welcome who can find it.

"To a man" because there are not any women in attendance today. You stay and browse the stacks for awhile, but find little inspiration you haven't already known.

Before you leave, you have a look at the some of the finding aids to see if you can spot any series you haven't seen before. Sure enough, you find several state-specific resources you can refer your patrons to in the future.

You exit. The sidewalk is blocked near your bus stop by an unorganized knot of people, some wielding oversized cameras. A loud and serious woman with thick glasses and a clipboard commands you to get out of the way. It is pleasing, then, when the bus arrives at that moment, opens its doors, and appears to swallow you in response.