Running a library is a lot of work, especially when you're doing it all by yourself. But the Bearers are out of town, a little dragon wasn't allowed to participate in the mission, it's the sort of autumn day where all of Ponyville wants to curl up with a book — and just to make things worse, Twilight was running a Print Your Own Story event. Add in the boxes upon boxes of fresh Release Day hardcovers, and Spike just has too much to do.
So why not let the patrons do it themselves? What's the hazard in allowing ponies to check out (and print) their own books with no supervision whatsoever? The library has rules. Surely you can't get a card unless you understand that.
Spike thinks ponies understand rules.
It's a mistake he's only going to make once.
Can be found here.
This story contains examples of:
- Didn't Think This Through: Spike grew up with Twilight, and therefore assumes that ponies will naturally follow the rules even without him there to supervise. It's even possible that many of them did. But many of them didn't, and were able to use his inattention to grab all the books they weren't allowed to.
- Plagiarism in Fiction: One pony really doesn't understand how copyright works at all. First, he thinks that if he writes something down, he can sell it, nevermind that he's copying a published book. Second, once Spike explains that someone else already wrote it first, he writes down Spike's name (misspelled) and says now he owns Spike. The police chief wanders in later, trying to figure out what she can charge him and his father for when they're doing that to random ponies around town.