I Love Libraries

When I was a little girl, going to the library was an adventure. There were all those books with the crackling plastic covers and the stories hidden inside of them. Sometimes you could tell from the picture on the front what the story would be about. Sometimes, you had to wait and be surprised. I wanted to read every book in the library by the time I grew up. It was an exquisite torture to have to pick just six books.

In college, the top floor of the UCSB library was a quiet sanctuary to read and study and nap. When I could not study for one more minute, I would explore the stacks, pulling out oddly titled books. From my scarred wooden carel, I would look out the window and watch the sun setting.

I may be one of the very few people who, when living in Aspen, spent her days off in the Aspen Library. It was comfortable and almost suburban. It was as far away as you might get from the tourists in their fur coats and cowboy hats. The books were often outdated and a little worn, but it was cozy and familiar, in the way that libraries are. You could not mistake the purpose of that building, no matter where it was situated. In every place that I have lived (California, Colorado, Iowa, Boston, Nantucket, or New York....it is a long list), I have sought out the public library, grand or small, and made it a place that was somehow my own.

And now I am a librarian. Although I still sell books, I also lend them as well. I help people with research and talk to them about great books to read. I help with computers and copiers and microfilm. I find that I am fitting happily into this new role. It may be because a library, any library, feels like home to me and I have finally settled in as a resident.