The Library

I’m sitting here at my computer, in my home, feeling fairly safe and private. I do a Google search to find an answer to something we were wondering about yesterday. I find a lot of options in the search and choose one and then another. I make a note of the helpful stuff and save it for later. I may even print it out if it’s important enough to keep. Then I move over to Facebook. I always do that now. It’s just part of the whole internet thing, now-a-days. To the right side of the main body are a list of ever changing ads. I don’t usually pay attention to them but this time there is one on the exact subject I just did a search on. It’s Google. It’s everywhere on the internet.

I love the internet for the ease of finding information. When the older kids were young we didn’t have the internet. The internet was becoming available as the kids got older but when they were young it was the library. We had several dictionaries in our home and some encyclopedias. I taught them to look something up if they didn’t know and to be sure about what they thought they knew. If we needed to know more, then it was the weekly trip to the county library. The first library we went to in our town was in a very old historic building with rooms full of books, a sitting area, tall narrow windows and a reception desk in the center room. It was full of books and crowded. The town had been working on plans for a new library for years and had finally come to an agreement on the whole project. The plans were posted at the old library and at the new library building site and posted in the daily paper. It was an exciting time in our town. Our family was also excited. We followed along with the progress.

Finally the day came for the books to be moved to the new building. Many of the books in the old building weren’t important enough to move so they had a sale and the kids and I went down there and bought as many as we could afford. Of course I had to go home and build a bookshelf to hold them all. We were at the new library for its opening week. It was beautiful. Large open spaces and plenty of light. The children’s books were on short shelves which you could see easily over and the lounge area for the kids was colorful and imaginative. We loved it. I could browse books of interest to me and watch the kids. I was interested in books about writing. Just in case you were wondering. All the other books we took home were children’s books which I loved as much or more than the kids. Not all the books we checked out were fiction. There was so much we wanted to know. There were books about places in the world, boats and planes and plants and animals. We found books about times in history. We read all the books we could. Sometimes we read books all day and most of the night. We often fell asleep reading.

Now we have Google, or Bing or other. I use Google. I can google from the computer or a device like Kindle, i-phone, as long as I have Wi-Fi. We can check different sources and print things out. One can go for hours referencing and cross referencing and finding out stuff. Amazon is always on standby. Have you noticed that? Whenever I come across a book about a subject, Amazon is there with a ‘buy now’ button. Prime members can have ‘one click’ service. No need to verify your purchase because you are a Prime Member. It’s quite risky. I’ve clicked on something to see more about it and next day there it is at my door. Of course, now I know that you have thirty minutes to cancel if you made a mistake. That is if you realize what you did. Buying books on Amazon is the easiest thing. I had to have Mark build me some shelves.

We have been using Google but this year we have decided to get back to our library routine. We did that when Chloe was younger but stopped during an unusually busy and stressful time. We have just started fourth grade. Fourth grade is the beginning of bigger stuff. We are going to need the library. We are excited about it. I’m hoping that their won’t be a sidebar on facebook reflecting our library browsing decisions. Hopefully there won't be any pop up bill-boards all the road, trying to sell us something because of our research choices. I have noticed that too on the internet. It all seems to be connected. Everything you look up or research on the internet has with it a whole industry. You innocently look up something to do with tomato diseases and you find answers. Lot’s of great answers. Some of them really useful. But then of course their are the books you may need and Amazon is there to help you with that. Then there are the industries. Ads about tomato cages, special gardening techniques, boxes and special watering systems, dirt analysis kits, seed packets, companion plants, chemicals and organic solutions. Help for the study of the moon and stars in relation to your tomato plants. All the animals and bugs and all the equipment needed to keep them away, trap them or delete them. These things pop up, slide across, invade the facebook news feed, fill your spam folder in your email. I looked up something once which had to do with health. Goodness me, I got so tired of that ad with the fat tummy and the big secret. Every time I tried to do something there it was. Sometimes it was moving, sometimes it was cut open so I could see what it looked like on the inside. I’m really hoping this does not happen with the library. With every thing becoming so modernized, I’m hoping that the library is still that same quiet, respectful, non-advertising peaceful place it always was, where information and adventure await you quietly from within the silent shelves.

Written by: Elizabeth Williams, daily writing exercise, 1,054 words.