false advertising

"If you want to find a book you use the online library catalog." said the woman at the check-out counter while pointing to a wall of computers nearby. As I glanced back and forth from her to the computers with a confused, helpless expression that she clearly missed, she waved me off with a dismissive hand gesture.
This interaction shouldn't have merited frustration and yet, it did.

I'd love to say that my professors here are as amazing as the ones I had at Sewanee. That's not the case. For instance, I have a professor here who doesn't so much as teach as directs us to the library so that we may teach ourselves. I thought that the very long list of suggested texts on the syllabus might not be imperative. Yet, after bombing the second class meeting in which I showed up with incomplete homework (due to not being able to find adequate research materials), I quickly realized I'd be living in the library for this singular course.
So to the library I went after a particularly boggling class meeting. But when I typed the name of the dictionary I needed into the catalog I couldn't understand the results. Yes, okay, I speak French BUT the catalog system here is different than in the U.S. and the catalog in the library also happens to be the catalog for all 39 libraries in Toulouse! See my difficulty?

After trying to get some help from a student at the next station (who apparently didn't speak English) I then tried the check-out desk. The first lady pointed me toward the computers with the aforementioned, frustrating statement. The second lady I asked gave me a library map without even looking up from her computer. The third told me the dictionary was an online text (everyone knows dictionaries in libraries are reference materials and are housed AT the library). 

I honestly think what frustrated me most (and does daily) is that EVERYTHING in France has been like the library. It take 3 or 4 tries or 3 or 4 people consulted to actually understand what's expected of me, where I am supposed to go, etc. I understand what they are saying to me, I just don't understand the arrangement of classrooms among the various academic buildings, the library organization, the business hours when there is a strike, the mail (some of which gets delivered at my door, some of which gets delivered to the post office, and some of which gets delivered to my mailbox) things like that - things the French just 'know'.

I was just about to leave the library and give up for the day when a thought occurred to me. This summer with Duke TIP we had arranged a library tour with our students so they could navigate finding books. I needed a tour!!! Avoiding the check-out desk people I'd already annoyed, I headed for the 'handicapped' check-out line, and in a sense I was verbally handicapped so I didn't feel out of place at all. The kind lady (who did not speak English) set up a 'visit' which I did this morning with a knowledgeable university tour guide (who also did not speak English).

I emphasize that the people don't speak English because I was told before coming to France that "everyone in Europe understands English because of all the tourism", and that's just NOT the case.

Fun fact - The central library on Le Mirail campus arranges it's books by academic subject matter and not in the usual 'fiction' 'non-fiction' 'biography' 'children's lit' 'popular lit' way that we do in America.
It's actually quite useful. Today I was working on Ancient French and found dictionaries, manuals, critiques, fictional examples, etc. all next to each other on the same shelf.
Sad fact for a library dweller like me: the library is only open when academic classes are in session each day.

Now I know how to work the card catalog, which floor of the library on which I'll do most of my studying and find most of my research materials, and how to navigate the building in general. One less thing in France for me to figure out.