A Day at the Library....
I am a browser-by-touch. There is nothing I hate more than trying think of what I want in a book, standing at a computer terminal, typing in keywords simply because I must in order to have a book suggestion provided to me. I'd much rather begin at one end of the room, be it bookstore or library, and slowly make my passes, my hand out, just skimming over the spines of the books.
Since I have spent the last 19 years of my life living in towns that mostly had tiny or no libraries at all, I have become a book buyer. The flurry of Barnes and Noble gift cards I got in December and June each year as teacher gifts helped enable this habit. A few years ago, I finally moved to a town with a large library. The new books alone take up three shelves. So, two years ago, when I took my first maternity leave, I became a patron of the library, hoping to be economical.
Well, in 19 years, things have changed. You don't stamp your own library books anymore, and you can't see who borrowed the book before you (a great loss, I think). But more frightening, in this new town of mine, the librarians call you at home when your book is overdue. One particularly cheerless voice asked me what my "intentions" with the book were, as if I were a snarling, maladjusted 17 year old boy with a hot rod come to pick up some naive 15 year old on a date. Normally, I'd have fired back something like that I had every intention of deflowering the book in the back seat of my car, but I was so startled by this new bounty-hunter approach to policing overdue books that I muttered something to make the voice go away, returned my book, and never went back.
I need to take a moment and explain something here. In ten years of using the University library as both a high school student and a college student, I never once returned a book on time. I know this because I was told by a roommate who was working at the library. She was looking up the borrowing histories of all her friends during a slow shift, when she stumbled upon my records. It is true. If it is important to remember, it must be entered into my palm pilot and written in Sharpie on my hand. I got an insulin pump, which attaches to the user's body, because I was incapable of consistently remembering to bring my insulin (Insulin! That water that keeps me alive!) with me when I left the house.
I have a child now, and I am on maternity leave once again. The current batch of Barnes and Noble gift cards will be my last for quite some time. Last night I spent twenty minutes searching for something to read in my library at home. The two books I was willing to reread were AWOL. There was nothing in my house to read that hadn't been read repeatedly all ready. So, today I went to the library.
My son was tucked into his stroller, and we rolled into the library and toward the new arrivals section. Just as soon as I lifted my left hand to begin trailing it along the spines, waiting for that inner prompting to let me know when to pull a book from the shelf, my son's inner prompting told him that tall bookshelves exist only to eat little boys, and he began to panick in his stroller. The panic moved from worried twisting in the straps of the stroller harness to whimpers that began to resemble outright screaming. I saw a Scrapbooking book on display, yanked it down, and as I spun the stroller around to head toward the main entrance I managed to spy the signature bindings of a collection of Nick Bantok books. Success! For me, the adventures of Griffin and Sabine ended after the third book. Book number four was wedged between the Scrapbook Encyclopedia and my elbow, and I pushed the squalling child in my stroller out of the forrest of baby eating bookshelves.
He stopped screaming.
I took him back to the stacks.
He began screaming for Daddy, much the way I hope he screams should anyone ever try to kidnap him. We left the stacks. I left with a browsing book and a fiction book of letters and postcards I will finish in less than an hour. I still have nothing to read in bed tonight.
It makes sense right now, for me to use the library system in my town. Alas, the library shuts each night well before my husband gets home from work. There will be no browsing in my library until my son grows a little older. There will be no aimless wandering, waiting for a book to speak. I, who cannot remember where her keys are from hour to hour, will need to come prepared each visit with a list of books that I have confirmed are available using the library's fabulous yet unsexy search engine online.
For right now, my days of aimless browsing have gone the way of restaurants without crayons tucked into the place settings.
I am a browser-by-touch. There is nothing I hate more than trying think of what I want in a book, standing at a computer terminal, typing in keywords simply because I must in order to have a book suggestion provided to me. I'd much rather begin at one end of the room, be it bookstore or library, and slowly make my passes, my hand out, just skimming over the spines of the books.
Since I have spent the last 19 years of my life living in towns that mostly had tiny or no libraries at all, I have become a book buyer. The flurry of Barnes and Noble gift cards I got in December and June each year as teacher gifts helped enable this habit. A few years ago, I finally moved to a town with a large library. The new books alone take up three shelves. So, two years ago, when I took my first maternity leave, I became a patron of the library, hoping to be economical.
Well, in 19 years, things have changed. You don't stamp your own library books anymore, and you can't see who borrowed the book before you (a great loss, I think). But more frightening, in this new town of mine, the librarians call you at home when your book is overdue. One particularly cheerless voice asked me what my "intentions" with the book were, as if I were a snarling, maladjusted 17 year old boy with a hot rod come to pick up some naive 15 year old on a date. Normally, I'd have fired back something like that I had every intention of deflowering the book in the back seat of my car, but I was so startled by this new bounty-hunter approach to policing overdue books that I muttered something to make the voice go away, returned my book, and never went back.
I need to take a moment and explain something here. In ten years of using the University library as both a high school student and a college student, I never once returned a book on time. I know this because I was told by a roommate who was working at the library. She was looking up the borrowing histories of all her friends during a slow shift, when she stumbled upon my records. It is true. If it is important to remember, it must be entered into my palm pilot and written in Sharpie on my hand. I got an insulin pump, which attaches to the user's body, because I was incapable of consistently remembering to bring my insulin (Insulin! That water that keeps me alive!) with me when I left the house.
I have a child now, and I am on maternity leave once again. The current batch of Barnes and Noble gift cards will be my last for quite some time. Last night I spent twenty minutes searching for something to read in my library at home. The two books I was willing to reread were AWOL. There was nothing in my house to read that hadn't been read repeatedly all ready. So, today I went to the library.
My son was tucked into his stroller, and we rolled into the library and toward the new arrivals section. Just as soon as I lifted my left hand to begin trailing it along the spines, waiting for that inner prompting to let me know when to pull a book from the shelf, my son's inner prompting told him that tall bookshelves exist only to eat little boys, and he began to panick in his stroller. The panic moved from worried twisting in the straps of the stroller harness to whimpers that began to resemble outright screaming. I saw a Scrapbooking book on display, yanked it down, and as I spun the stroller around to head toward the main entrance I managed to spy the signature bindings of a collection of Nick Bantok books. Success! For me, the adventures of Griffin and Sabine ended after the third book. Book number four was wedged between the Scrapbook Encyclopedia and my elbow, and I pushed the squalling child in my stroller out of the forrest of baby eating bookshelves.
He stopped screaming.
I took him back to the stacks.
He began screaming for Daddy, much the way I hope he screams should anyone ever try to kidnap him. We left the stacks. I left with a browsing book and a fiction book of letters and postcards I will finish in less than an hour. I still have nothing to read in bed tonight.
It makes sense right now, for me to use the library system in my town. Alas, the library shuts each night well before my husband gets home from work. There will be no browsing in my library until my son grows a little older. There will be no aimless wandering, waiting for a book to speak. I, who cannot remember where her keys are from hour to hour, will need to come prepared each visit with a list of books that I have confirmed are available using the library's fabulous yet unsexy search engine online.
For right now, my days of aimless browsing have gone the way of restaurants without crayons tucked into the place settings.
posted by Bellanca43 | 11:01 AM
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