For the love of libraries
I tend to run hot and cold with public libraries. I will actively profess my love for them for a number of months, before getting violently turned off by one little frustrating experience (like when a book I knew I returned kept showing up on my account as still outstanding). While I was growing up, I was an avid reader who hated libraries. This was because I wanted to own a copy of every book I read, in case the characters called out to me from inside my imagination and I needed to revisit them. But with the price of book what it is these days, and this city woefully lacking in good used bookstores (come on, I grew up in Portland, OR where Powell’s City of Books reigns supreme) I turn to the library to get my fix.
I’m currently deeply in the throes of love for the Philadelphia Free Library (founded by our own Benjamin Franklin, in my opinion one of his best innovations), especially the Philadelphia City Institute just off Rittenhouse Square. It’s open until 8 pm on Mondays and Wednesdays, and at this point of my life, a week does not feel complete without a trip over there. Last week I went in to pick up two books on reserve, and ended up coming home with six. Tonight, I returned three, another two I had requested were available, and I threw an additional four onto my stack, for good measure.
The thing I love about the library is that if you don’t like a book, you can stop mid-sentence, shut the cover and never look back. There needs to be no guilt about the 8 or 12 or 25 dollars you spent on the book (although I rarely pay full price for books, that’s why thriftstores were invented. The only problem with buying books at thriftstores is that you never get what you actually want to read, and then you end up with shelves full of books that don’t grab your attention). You can spend a little time on your couch with a book that had briefly grabbed your attention that day in Borders or Barnes and Noble, without the awkwardness of reading the whole thing while sitting in the bookstore coffee shop (ask me someday how I read books 4 and 5 of the Harry Potter series).
I recommend that you give your local public library a chance. It’s what Ben Franklin would have done.
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We’ve had to go without in Minnneapolis for quite awhile now as far as libraries go. That’s not completely true, but while the new extravagant central library has been under construction, a great many of the materials have been unavailable, some of them for several years. But our new showpiece is about to open, in May. I can’t wait to go and revel in all its printed word glory. Now if we could only get them to stay open later, and maybe have at least one open on a Sunday.
In this, the year of Ben, a fitting phrase : WWBFD…
My library visits go hot/cold but my love for them is incredible. I read the bulk of Agatha Christies mysteries from them as a kid and to this day just like to go and look. Also love that I can look thru the CD collection and get a free trial on a CD.