I have always loved the library. As a child, I grew up just blocks from the Tippecanoe Library and my parents took me and my sister there often. We could look at the books and take out as many as we wanted. As a little girl, I would often go into the bathroom and sit on the floor next to the toilet and surround myself with my books. I even have a photo to prove it. I'm not quite sure if this was during the potty training time of life or if I just was particularly fond of sitting in the bathroom.
But even more than the library itself, I have more frequent and fond memories of the Bookmobile. Do you remember the Bookmobile? I loved that thing! The smell as you stepped on board of paper and ink was intoxicating to me. To this day, my sister and I smell books. (Yes, our mother thinks we're strange and we have gathered a few odd looks when we partake of book scents in public, but we don't care. Books smell good. (Mostly.) That's all there is to it.) While the Bookmobile certainly didn't have the selection of the regular library, it came near your house! It was a library on wheels! Like boarding a bus filled with shelves and shelves and shelves of books! I loved it. My parents took me there often, too.
So, ultimately, I guess you can say that it's my parents' fault that I'm such a library-loving, book-coveting, voracious reader. They knew very well that I would read by flashlight under the covers even after bedtime and they allowed it to happen. (I think they were and are secretly proud of it.) So, yeah. I'm sticking with that: I'm blaming the parents!
What got me thinking of all this (as if I'm not always thinking about books) was my visit to the library today. I already have two books checked out and I (may have) checked out . . . oh, three more books and a few CDs. I can't help it. I'm an addict. I admit it; and I blame my parents.
So, what are you guys reading? And who wants to bring back the Bookmobile with me?
Current read(s) -- A Storm of Swords, as I race through George RR Martin's series. You must read these, Jenna!
Just finished: Desolate by Robert Brumm, a local author. Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier, the author of Cold Mountain. And The Trinity Game by Sean Chercover, it is the book that I would recommend. I did not use the bookmobile much, I remember being in it a few times but I don't think I checked out any books.
I have my own Wi_Fi, actually, but it's nice to know that the library is there for interruptions in service, and for those books my own library doesn't have.
There is only so much public funding available. Do we really need to have our suburban libraries holding Harry Potter parties every time Rowling rolls out a new book? That funding could be used to help keep an inner city library open, or to buy new books or pay for a computer for a library located where the average person cannot afford to buy a book or computer. I don't discount the importance of libraries, but I do believe that they are more necessary for certain segments of the population than they are for others...
There is actually a place called Project Guttenberg which offers free epub downloads of books that are in the public domain, so Google helps you there. But something tells me that Pennypacker is not a scholar. One learns more from a complete book than from a page on the net.
from Shorewood Library
If the well-known Jesuit university is Marquette, big whoop. It's turned out its share of fools.
http://books.google.com/bkshp?hl=en&tab=wp ...though it seems more like a store than a library.
Does Glade make a 'Bookmobile' or 'Library' plug-in scent?
I kept a few of the most treasured, and a few that mention me or family members. Of course, a couple hundred others had no value and are still here.