Happy National Library Lover's Day!
A day to celebrate the best part of love: libraries and books
Aaahhhhh…February. A time to stay inside, cozily safe from the cold outside, and ready to enjoy the best parts of love. That’s right: libraries! Books, information, community resources - there is something for everyone to love!!!
Happy National Library Lover’s Day, everyone!
Of course, I’ve always loved libraries. Some of my formative library experiences involved skipping school to ride the bus downtown and spend the day in the public library. I basically spent my childhood with a book in my hand. (“Put down the book” is the most frequent thing every adult I ever encountered said to me.)
After my mom - a librarian - spent time trying to encourage me to go to library school, and I spent time huffing that it sounded so boring; I did the obvious, and went to library school. And of course: she was completely right. My very first day was Management class, and I loved every moment of it. You know when you’ve been looking around for the right fit - something that works just right for you? It could be a couch, a beverage, a new friend. For me, it was finding library school. I loved it, and I’ve been a librarian for twenty five years now - and while there have been trying days, overall I’ve loved every day of it!
And today, more than ever before, we need libraries.
I’m not going to rehash the dementia-filled decisions from Bozo The Clown sitting in the White House. You know them, you’ve read about them. And I know you feel as absolutely sick to your stomach as I am.
In a time when information is being censored, deleted, altered, and hidden - we need libraries. We need information professionals more than ever. We need people who know how to find and to save information. We need people with skills to know how to sift real, actual true things from absolute piles of frequently-repeated bullshit.
There are more terrible things ahead for us. We need to do what we can to stand up to the forces of darkness, and to protect and share information.
And we need to maintain joy. If libraries, and good information skills, just become a club to beat over people’s heads - we’ve lost the point.
Libraries are wonderful and valuable. They should bring joy and happiness to you, and to everyone in the community.
So visit your library today! Find some books, attend a program, check out something cool from the Library Of Things. Tell someone, tell anyone, about the library! You, personally, will know some people who may benefit from the library - and you are best method for finding their way to the library.
To wrap up my love of libraries, and to celebrate this wonderful holiday of Library Lover’s Day, I’ll share a book series that I’m reading and absolutely loving: the Phryne Fisher series! I’ve had people recommend it to me, and half thought that I’d get to it someday. Then I read the first one for a book challenge - and I’ve been absolutely hooked since then!
The books are set in Australia in the 1920s. Phryne is wealthy, gorgeous, and very determined. She goes on to solve mysteries, and to exhibit effortless ease in bringing justice to the people victimized by evil doers. Her history is explored as a poor child in England, eating from trash cans, and the time she quit school to run away to France and drive ambulances in World War One. (The Great War, of course; because people surely wouldn’t be so stupid to do it a second time.) She collects a family of people around her, and is stylish and wonderful in all of it.
I’ve been reading them on my Kindle app, and I’d suggest that. There are a lot of Australian and historical slang words that I’m looking up, and ebooks are great for that! Try one of them. Grab a book using your Libby app, and settle in for some good adventures ahead!
To wrap it all up - a parting thought:
Love your library. Talk about it. Use it. Check things out, talk with the staff, and just enjoy it all! Libraries are the jewels of the communities they serve - whatever kind of library, and whatever community is served.
In the midst of everything that will happen over the next four years - remember to bring joy to what you do. Let libraries inspire you with joy, and give some joy back to your library! We’re all here together, and great things can come from that!