Small Libraries

First, let me say that I love my Kindle on my computer and phone.  I’d love to have an iPad.  I love the idea of ebooks.

But one of my concerns with this emerging technology is the fear that public libraries will disappear.

I love a library.  I love everything about it—there is nothing like being surrounded by books and books and more books.  The peacefulness in a library is settling.  The idea that I can choose any book to read in that whole building, for free!!  makes me nearly giddy.  I love librarians–I love to shelve books, the orderliness to that, the systematic trustworthiness of the alphabet and of the Dewey Decimal System.  I love the Dewey Decimal System.

When I was young and would occasionally visit my grandparents home in Belle Rive, IL, I would often sneak off to the public library.  That place was magic to me.  It was two blocks from my grandparents home.  It was on “Main Street” which consisted of a post office, the library and some sort of store thing.  And a flag pole, I remember the flag pole.

This building was tiny, tiny, tiny.  One room.  No air conditioning.  And it smelled wonderful–musty and dusty and smart.  So smart.  The selection available was tiny, too.  I can almost picture the entire collection in my mind–not really, of course.  But the imprint is there.

I don’t want small, tiny libraries to disappear.

I came across this picture of one such library.  That prompted me to search for a picture of the library at Belle Rive,(population 371 in 2000!!!) but I had no luck.  But it was so very similar to the library below: