Been to the Library?

Kate and I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's again last night.  In it, Holly and Paul spend the day doing things they've never done before.  Can you name the four things they do?  I'll tell you one of them; going to the library. ! Holly had never been to a library before.  I can't imagine.  I have library cards in 6 different counties including ones in Wisconsin, California and Texas (might not be valid anymore - I wonder?)

This past week was National Library Week and its got me thinking.  A short time ago, I spent the day with my 3 year-old neice.  We went to a local lbrary and had just stepped in the door when I realized she was no longer beside me.  I turned around and saw her standing, stock-still, in the doorway staring in wonderment at this ceiling.  I looked up and gasped.  I had honestly never noticed this ceiling before (and my eyes are a whole lot nearer to it than hers)! 

"Everyday, do something that makes you uncomfortable."  That was the advice a friend once gave me.  She now lives overseas and  I don't always follow this advice, but I did feel uncomfortable when I went back to the library this week, was standing still in the doorway, with people having to move around me, taking a photograph of the ceiling.

As a kid, I rode my bike to the library in the summer.  In college, I sat in the individual study carols next to the tall, tall window where the sunlight fell at a slant across the shelves of books.  Our local Arboretum has a library with the old fashioned card catalog drawers and has tables and chairs carved from beautiful slabs of trees.  The library we visit during our summer stay at the lake is in an old stone builing that has secret passages running between the floors. 

The theme of this year's National Library Week is "You Belong @ Your Library" so.....go on.

"There is not such a cradle of democracy on earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration."    -Andrew Carnegie