Venting frustrations over careless classmates

[fatty]

I don't usually like to make venting posts but I'm busting at the seams here.

I've got a presentation to give next Wednesday, 30-40 minutes, on a topic in Canadian defence policy (if you are interested, it is about the 1987 Challenges and Commitments white paper). The presentations summarize the WP but mainly delve into some of the surrounding literature that pursued the WP, critiquing it or building upon it.

So I rolled into the library Friday afternoon to pick up the course reader and start preparing. The course reader is a package of readings assembled by the professor and kept on two hour reserve at the front desk. You can take it, photocopy it, read it, whatever you want, but you must return it within two hours. It contains all the literature that comments on the various topics (including my presentation on the WP).

I asked the clerk to go find it for me. She types a little on her keyboard and then wrinkles her nose. "It's been loaned out." Okay, fair enough. Worst case I will have to kill two hours until whoever has it returns it, but it will probably only be 30-45 minutes. I ask her to check when it is due back... turns out the reader has been overdue since last wednesday at 8:30 PM. As of now that's about 92 hours overdue. There is a second reader, which I assume is a duplicate, which has also been missing since the same time. They charge late fines by the hour, so if somebody has both they're looking at $184 in fines.

Yikes, so I am out of luck for now. I e-mailed the professor Friday evening to ask if he had a copy I could borrow until Wednesday, but no joy yet. It's a graduate level seminar so nobody in the class is so stupid that they'd sign it out and forget or even lose it. Not much I can do for now, can't prepare a presentation without material