please support your local public library

penny on June 26, 2012

Please support your local public library.

Why? Well, Isaac Asimov says it best.

“I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library. For an impoverished child whose family could not afford to buy books, the library was the open door to wonder and achievement, and I can never be sufficiently grateful that I had the wit to charge through that door and make the most of it.” Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)

My childhood was not impoverished though budget was often quite tight. Books were, and are, always a welcome and special gift. Visiting the library allowed me to read so much more. At one point, my mother and I got into trouble for holding two different library system cards and were banned from borrowing from either for a year. That period is still a traumatic one for me.

Still not convinced? Try this Library Use Value Calculator. Try it for just one month’s worth of your reading. Can you donate that amount? Please?

Still unsure?

I have three public library systems that I support, even if it’s just purchasing a book or two from a Friends of the Library annual sale.

The newest one to the list is my local Westchester Public Library branch, even if I think their new patron restrictions are bizarre.

I love the New York Public Library that has tirelessly supported my reading and learning for the past 15 years. Without access to the knitting books in their circulating collection, I do not think I would be the Knitter I am today.

I also still support the Brooklyn Public Library when I can. They opened up new worlds to me during the seven years that I lived there.

Because of all libraries–public school, general public, and the private libraries of my college and university–I’ve read books I wouldn’t have read otherwise because they’re difficult to find in print or because they are scholarly and quite expensive and out of reach. I’ve found business books to help figure out what to do and fiction to escape with. I’ve read biographies and traveled through time and place with history books.

Yes, I geek the library!

Please, donate. If your budget is making that difficult right now, that’s ok. Go to your library and ask what you can do to help. Thank you.

Rose Main Reading Room, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, New York Public Library

Reader interactions

3 Replies to “please support your local public library”

  2. LC June 27, 2012 at 9:33 am

    NYPL (by Central Park) intimidated me, but I was only there once, with a toddler and infant and no other grownup. I loved the local library as a kid, taking out stacks of fiction “as high as my head” – from the countertop, and I was only 8.

    And I shudder to think about being banned – when BPL and Brookline parted ways re: shared interlibrary loan, Brookline continued to allow Boston patrons to borrow books (and request) directly through their system.

Comments are closed.