I love libraries. Ever since I was a little girl, I took comfort in the Dewey decimal system and the smell of acid paper. I loved searching through the card catalog drawers, and I enjoyed hearing the satisfied *clunk* of the machine that checked out the books. Then came acid-free paper and computerized catalogs. I'm kind of a geek - I could roll with the computerized punches. The Dewey decimal system remained a constant, though, and I appreciated that.
As more and more books are published, it makes intuitive sense that there needs to be more place to store them because, of course, you can't banish the old ones for the sole purpose of providing space for the new books.
The local library is being closed for expansion for a whole year or more. I am saddened. First of all, I don't like change. Second of all, the other library is further away and it's small. It also stinks like wet dog. I went to the further away stinky library twice in the past week. It is soooo crowded. The closed library that they're expanding is currently 40,000 square feet. The other library is 6,000 square feet. So the further away library is really at maximum capacity. They seem to have about 80-100 parking spaces, and they're all full & people are parking on the grass. There is a huge line for all of the computers. There are so many people milling around that you can't find anything. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
After I picked up the movie that was on hold, I remembered that they opened up a small branch in the mall temporarily. It had to be better than the smelly overcrowded library. It was far less crowded, but there was hardly anything there. I browsed and came away with a few books, so I guess it wasn't too horrible of a selection. They did have a lot of children's and teen fiction. And there were a zillion resume and job hunting books. I wonder by what process things were sent to the mall library. Was it like, "Hey, how do we target people who amble the mall and come into the mall library during the day? Jobs! They need jobs."
I'm counting down the days til they open the newly expanded library that will accommodate all those new books published in the last 18 years.
2 comments:
As kids, my brother and I lived at the library!! Story time...ahhhhhhh :) Loved it! And I am thankful that my mother took us there weekly then because I think it turned me into the book lover that I am today. Something I definitely plan on doing with Waylon too.
However, I do not like the town we live in right now...let's just say it's....icky. Lots of "thugs" around here that I don't feel safe around(we actually have a high gang population in this county and I hate it!). So, I never go to my local library(or anything local for that matter). As soon as we move farther south and are in a better atmosphere, I will be lurking around the library for sure!! :)
How far south are you going? Stephan used to visit Conyers for work all the time. I think that's south, but since I've never been there, I really have no idea. :)
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