Friends of the Library

Yesterday in the mail I received my Friends of the Library card.  I’m not a joiner, but being a friend of the library was something I could get behind. 

For 65 years various libraries throughout the US have been my friend and now it’s time for me to try to pay them back.  When I was growing up, my family moved, every year.  We remained within the same area, but always in a different school district.  This meant that whatever friends I made in school would be in my rearview mirror as we moved on to somewhere else.  Making friends was easy.  Keeping those friends was difficult.  During those years, there wasn’t an internet, there was no Facebook.  There were paper and envelopes and maybe your mother would loan you a stamp.  My friends became the ladies at the library.  They told me about new worlds in books they had just received.  They introduced me to people who I could carry in my book bag and who would be with me wherever I went.  I wanted to grow up to be a librarian. I imagined spending my life surrounded by books.   Being a librarian wasn’t in my cards but the library never abandoned me.

When I grow up and married, the moving every year stopped, but there were a few moves that involved due to job relocations.  When we’d find a new home in a new city, before even having the electricity turned on or finding the grocery, I’d seek out the library.

When we moved here from the land of the Yankees, not the baseball team, but the War of Northern Aggression Yankees, the first thing I did was look for a library.  The Sequoyah Regional Library System was in its infancy at that point.  The Woodstock library was in a tiny building in downtown Woodstock.  Books were stacked everywhere, on the floor, on window sills, on table tops.  You could see the dust motes in the air.  It smelled like old books.  It was totally delightful.  It was warm.  It was cozy.  It tried to be organized, but the small space didn’t allow for much organization.  But disorganization in a library is a treasure chest.  Everywhere you turned you found something shiny and interesting that you may never have explored if things were arranged perfectly.  I loved that library and was sad when progress intervened and it moved to its new site.

When my daughter, Ryann, was little, she was as into books as I am.  We would go to the little Woodstock library and she’d fill her arms with wonderful stories.  One afternoon, we were in hurry and we had books to return, but no time to go inside the library.  We knew that once inside, we’d be lost forever and time would quickly slip away.  I parked my car in an on-street parking spot two doors down from the library.    Ryann, who was about 7 at the time, took the library books to the outdoor bin where you deposited them when the library was closed.  She popped them into the bin.  The library door blew open and a library lady came running out shouting.  “That bin is for when the library is closed.  Don’t ever put books in the bin when the library is opened.”  Ryann’s little legs churned as she raced to the car.  We took off like we were running from the cops.  Smoke peeled from under our squealing tires.  That didn’t keep us from returning to the library, but we’d learned our lesson.  We never ever use the bin when the library is open.

Now the libraries in our county have grown.  There are several to choose from.  Everything is easily found.  There are areas for children to play while they’re learning that reading is fun and a spectacular world of books to become lost in. There are people to help when you need help finding anything.  If you want to read a best seller, the Librarians will put your name on a list and call you when the book is available.  Where else can you get personal service like that for free?  With library funding being cut, the library needs friends. 

I have one of those electronic books.  I love it.  It’s easy to read, its light weight.  It can go anywhere. I can choose any book I want and it downloads without waiting.   It takes the place of a book.  But, it isn’t a book.  I can’t turn a real page.  I can’t feel the weight of the book in my hand. I can’t smell its history.  I can’t use the bookmark that looks like a frog that Ryann gave me when she was in kindergarten.  Nothing can take the place of a real live book.

I don’t know what being a friend of the Library really means yet, but I’m ready and waiting to learn.  The Sequoyah Regional Library has been my friend for over 25 years.  Now it’s time for me to step up to the bookplate.