Do you remember spending hours going through the card catalogs at the library? Sometimes I lost myself in titles and words. I remember thinking, "All these books! How will I ever read them all?" I'd look up an author, a topic, or a title. Then I would take one of the small wooden pencils and the little sheet of paper from the top of the drawers and write down the numbers that would lead me to the books I wanted. It was before Barnes and Noble...and before Amazon. The Mead Pubic Library....a refuge at the top of marble stairs on Seventh Street. Growing up in the city of Sheboygan, WI, I was fortunate to have a wonderful children's library to go to after school. There were stacks and stacks of picture books. I would get lost in the stacks. I spent hours sitting on the floor in an aisle with a pile of books to pour over. It was the librarian in the children's library that I innocently asked for, "a book about the birds and the bees". She was a wonderful older woman (at least older to me and, remember, I barely looked over the counter then). She smiled...barely concealing her amusement and distracted me by showing me how to check in books that had been returned to her. Back then, we just signed our names to a card that was in a pocket glued to the back of the book. For each book I printed my name (very carefully) on the card. The librarian would stamp the date it was due to be returned next to my name. Later, I could find books that I had checked out previously...and there...on the card was a time capsule. There was my name...printed by me...weeks, months and in some cases a year before! Sometimes my name was on it twice. I'd look to see if anyone I knew had read the same book. Once or twice I would run across a book that my brother, or uncle (he was only two years older than I) had checked out. That was a strange and wonderful feeling to pull out that card from the pocket and trace their handwriting with my finger...It was almost magic to me that a piece of them from that day was right here in my hands. I am now thinking I was a slightly strange kid...but those are things that made me feel connected to something bigger than myself. Those were beginnings. Maybe my love of books began there, sitting on the floor of the library....always in the stacks rather than at the kid's table or the rug provided in the middle of the room. That was too far from the beloved picture books. Remember Flicka, Ricka and Dicka,
Snip Snap and Snur,
The Happy Hollisters, Nancy Drew,
and, Mike Mulligan And His Steam Shovel?
And one of my very favorites has returned!!! Curious George!!!!
Do you remember being able to go up the stairs and entering the adult library for the first time? It was so BIG! The first time I was in there alone I walked up and down the stacks just looking at all the book covers. They were new and old....and some so old they barely had a cover on them. I learned how books were bound by seeing the bared pages. I learned the smell of the library. I learned that I would never....ever read them all. I remember touching the bindings as I walked up and down, looking from the top to the bottom of each stack of books. I even stopped to look at the ones sitting in the cart to be put away again....and again....and again. Some how I had to at least SEE all of the titles. I think I grew up in the library. Images and words are powerful things. I could have never imagined things such as blogs, ISBN numbers....or my very own illustrated books. It is fun to find them on the shelves of libraries and bookstores. I could never have dreamed that would come true.
My daughter is taking her children to library story hour. I remember taking my own children to story hours. Three generations...I wonder...what do their little minds think of it all?
If you would like to make your own library card catalog go HERE. Just for old times sake.
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