Library Bob has a post in which he shares what he calls his “state of the library speech”. One line of it jumped out at me. He said:
That said, I think people will continue to come to their public libraries in order to talk to knowledgeable people.
As I read that, I thought about how my husband and I use our public library. We go on a regular basis and check books out. But we have shelves of books of our own at home that we read, too. Almost every week we go to Goodwill and buy more books. But still we go to the library. And the reason is those knowledgeable people.
It isn’t that we ask them questions, tax their research abilities. We just talk to them. About books or life or whatever. Librarians are interesting people. They are thinking, aware people. And they are fun to talk to.
And when we go to the library, we frequently talk with other patrons. They are pretty knowledgeable people, too. Sometimes they are people we know, but most often they are total strangers until that chance meeting in the stacks.
Libraries are, for us, social venues. We go for the human contact as much as for the books. If you haven’t been to your local library lately, why not drop by one afternoon soon. See what kinds of knowledgeable people you can run into!
I just recently started going back to my local library, and I love it! (I was spending too much money on buying new books.) What type of books do you read?
Unfortunately, when I go, the librarians seem to always be pulled in another direction, so I haven’t talked to them much.
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Weird. I have rarely talked to the librarians since I guess growing up I used to buy books more than I borrowed them. Now that I’m working though I think I value money much more as well as the ability to participate in this stream of borrowing. Next time I go back home, I’ll see if I can talk to the librarians