Monday, September 20, 2004

Andrew Carnegie, I love you.

eek. That last post is a bit, um, exuberant, isn't it. I was pretty happy that night: still am, in fact.

I have a new book (fun fun fun) so took it to the local library this morning. I'm fond of the the place. It's clean, well-maintained, with plenty of parking and some fun displays in the lobby. The reference librarians are always talking, well, reference, except for the time that I caught them discussing the attractiveness of the men in the film "Love, Actually." Not surprisingly, the children's section is usually a lot quieter in the morning than the adult section, so I can get a fair amount done.

Yet - and you knew I'm find something historial upon which to ruminate - it is very much a new suburban place. I'd guess that the structure was built in the 1970s, which is about the time that my 'burb really began to expand. Most of the books are newer, too. I know, intellectually, why this is, and why it makes sense, and why many libraries cannot keep every title ever purchased or donated.

I grew up with an older library, something like a hundred years old. Though it had lots of new titles, you also had a pretty good chance of stumbling across a title that hadn't been checked out in since the Truman administration, but was a still a fantastic read. I had fun simply walking down a row of shelves, looking at title or author names.

My present library, I hasten to add, has excellent ILL services, and I'm sure that if I requested a forty year old mystery novel, they would find it. This is more efficient, but not as spontaneous.

Words Written: six hundred and two (but had to do a lot of editing of old progress)
Lessons Graded: forty-two

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