March 28, 2006
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Hurray for Libraries!!
[this post is written with a sleeping 1 year old boy draped over my shoulder: =) ]
I think one of the great gifts a parent can give a child is a sense of familiar comfort in a public library. If they know how to get around the stacks and computer card catalogs they have quite a horizon before them. My local library has its limitations, but all the same it has blessed me. Here’s a short list of things I love about my library.
1. My son and I are on a first-name basis with all the staff.
2. They welcome my recommendations for purchases to their collection.
3. I get an email reminding me of upcoming due dates three days before an item is due.
4. They are adding many Teaching Company courses to their collection. I am currently listening to How to Read and Understand Poetry.
5. Our library is an original Carnegie library. This year a new building is going up. For all its issues, I shall miss the red brick building, the steps up to the main door, the high ceilings, the charm of an older building, and the legacy behind it. Thank you, Andrew Carnegie!!
6. I have saved many $$$ by borrowing books from the library for curricula. It’s not optimum, but I believe you could give a child a decent education from preschool through high school using the public library.
Comments (1)
As bookworm-ish girl, I was allowed to walk down from Ackerman Lab School to the library on days my mom had teachers’meetings at Central. I got to stay till she honked for me about 5:30. I was in, to my childish mind, heaven. All my friends were there, Betsy and Tacy, and later Tib, Laura, Cap, the Austins, Taran, silly Gurgie and those boys whose dad was a wild animal hunter… all of them and more! I would walk to the library in the summer with stacks of books, the weight tearing at my muscles.
I, too, will miss that library, though I’m in a new place.
Brenda