Time was, children, if you wanted a library book, you had to go to the library. The actual physical library building. You located your book in the card catalog. Then you rowed through the stacks until you chased it down by its Dewey decimal number. And since you were already there, you might cruise through those stacks just to see whether something interesting popped up.
I was at the library the very day the card catalog was hauled away. I was barely 40 years old but had a full-blown case of premature curmudgeonry. This was a terrible betrayal. It was as though the ancient Greeks had ousted their oracle. But I’m over it. Now, the library is a place where people go to get warm. The rest of us are online. We can put a hold on a book, and they’ll even mail it to us for free if we want. It’s like shopping, or getting food, or banking – there’s no need to pry yourself out of your comfy chair.
But I enjoy the starch of virtue I get from walking to the library to pick up my book. The space devoted to holds is almost as big as the rest of the stacks now. They don’t have as many books out on the main bookshelves anymore. It feels like an orphanage for books nobody wants to put a hold on.
Why We Wrote This
From card catalogs and the Dewey decimal system to e-books and 3-D printers, libraries have evolved over the years. What has endured: The timeless pleasure of getting lost amid the stacks and stumbling onto new treasures.
I’m certain the books I order gossip about me in the hold limbo. The nonfiction sneers at the genre lit, and the literary fiction sneers at everything. They’ve got time; they can be there awhile. When I put a book on hold, the library usually informs me that I’m No. 257 in line for 22 copies. So, I already know other people want to read that book, too, and since everything is done on the honor system now and there are no overdue fines, I have to try really hard to get the little princesses read and returned.
That’s not my strong suit. For someone who takes to wordage like an otter takes to water, I’m a remarkably slow reader. I hardly ever sit in a chair and read. I read in bed. That’ll get me five pages in before I fall asleep, and I won’t remember them the next night.
And for the past few years, I have – more than once – tried to return a book to a library that was no longer open. Thanks to the generosity of Portland, Oregon, taxpayers who can’t pass up a library or parks levy, our neighborhood libraries are getting a makeover. Some of them might even be retrofitted to withstand the big Cascadia subduction zone earthquake that the geologists have penciled in for us.
Five years ago, my local branch closed down, and the suggested replacement added a mile to my walk. Then that one closed, and the county arranged for a pop-up branch in a tiny room of a college campus, where the staff was lonely and eager to help out and recommend things. I loved that little gem, but last year it closed for good, and I was directed to a whole different branch. I’m sure there was an announcement made, but I never seemed to find out until I walked a book back and saw the sign on the door. I can adjust. I don’t take these things personally.
The other day, I returned a book to this latest entry in Library Bingo, and had nothing to pick up. So I browsed the actual physical shelves like a caveman. Honestly, what’s next? Picking live food off trees?
Anyway, there was a novel I hadn’t read, by an author I admire! I checked it out and sneaked away as though I’d found a diamond ring in a dark alley. I started reading it that night.
It was not good. This author had won the Pulitzer Prize, but not for this sad little opus. Still, I gave it every chance. Maybe it would redeem itself on the last page.
It did not.
And it was almost overdue. But they weren’t hounding me for it. Apparently, word was out: Nobody else wanted to read it, either. And, of course, when I went to return it, the library was closed. The sign directed me to the original location, 3 miles from home. Renovations were complete.
It was gorgeous. Spacious, friendly, and apparently ready for anything plate tectonics could throw at it. There was art; there was light; there were beanbag chairs, community rooms, large windows. In a world where facts are sometimes manufactured to order and the truth can twist out of reach, there is comfort and serenity in a library that stays put.
I returned my book, four weeks late. No one’s in line to check it out. I gave it a pat of encouragement. “Find a shelf, and make yourself at home,” I said to my book as I dropped it in the slot. “You’re not going anywhere for a good long time.”
It’s my home now, too.
