by Jennifer Crutchfield, former Head Editor, INALJ Connecticutpreviously published 10/31/13

Where are the Books? A Cruise Ship Library 

Recently, I went on a week-long cruise to Bermuda. One of the first places we visited was the library. I was excited to see what the library looked like.  The room was beautiful with comfortable seating. I was pleased to see the beautiful Rockettes costumes. This was a surprised for me and I’m a big fan of the Rockettes! To see the stunning costumes really wowed me. But the library lacked something…BOOKS! As you can see in the picture, there are beautiful costumes and a few books sitting on the shelf to the right. That’s pretty much what the entire library looked like, a couple costumes on display and a few books next to them. As a librarian, this was very disappointing and a little lame especially since we were on the boat for three days until we got to our destination.

This particular boat had been sailing for about a year so I did take that into consideration. Maybe they are building a little collection? I noticed that almost everywhere I looked during my cruise I saw people reading and there is a demand for books so you would think the library would be more robust. They did have a small book exchange during the cruise where you could leave any books you didn’t want out on a table for all to enjoy.

The cruise line was offering e-readers for three dollars a day. You could purchase books for the regular fee.