A bitchin’ post
|April 15, 2009|
When I was young and rude, as opposed to middle aged and rude, the word “bitchin” was a term of praise. It is in that sense of the word that I invite you to join me over at Bookbitch, a bitchin’ blog about books.
And don’t forget to give me your love letter to a library, which could bring you untold riches, or a book, which is the same thing. You can just post it as a comment here, if you like. I’ll read it, and enjoy it, and maybe give it a prize.
My favourite library ever would be a dream library, composed of bits and pieces of many favourite libraries I have visited over the last few year. The location would have to be that of Bayerische Staatsbibliothek here in Munich, close to my place of work, but close to a huge park as well, so that you can spend the entire day working there, but also get out and take a refreshing walk when your thoughts get stuck. The setting should be that of our International Youth Library at Blutenburg Castle – a delightful water castle with lots of room for books inside its old walls, towers and dungeons, but also with room for readers to enjoy their books. Its collections should combine those of Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, the International Youth Library and the Herzog August Bibliothek at Wolfenbüttel – lots and lots of manuscripts and really old, dusty, wonderful books inviting endless reading adventures and scholarly expeditions. Add the service of Wolfenbüttel’s HA library, where you’ll get any book on your table within 6 hours – or even the miracles of some Ivy League university libraries which a guest professor from Cambridge once told be about (about Yale I believe?): A library where it only takes 20 minutes until the librarian brings you the early modern manuscript you have always dreamt about … Lots of shelves, please, as many books as possible should be accessible directly (and think of the adventures of wandering and getting lost between the shelves!). Finally, that library of my dreams should possess the magical abilities I remember from my very first library ever, the book bus that stopped outside my school every two weeks: It should always come up with a pile of books that I can fall in love with immediately, that satisfy my hunger and are perfect for my situation at exactly that moment.
Rather than telling you about my own love of libraries, which is substantial but not in any way extraordinary, I thought I would tell you about someone else’s generous gift to my favorite library, the Fairfax County Public Library in Fairfax County, Virginia. I may have a few details of this story wrong, but I’m pretty sure I have the essentials right.
A patron of our library worked at Dulles Airport and apparently invested wisely. In his later years, after retirement, he lost his sight, and became dependent on recorded books. (I am not dependent on recorded books, but I love them, because I can “read” while driving or doing boring housework.) On his death, this gentleman left a million dollars — the largest donation in the library’s history — with the proviso that it be used for recorded books. Now many of our library’s recorded books come with a neat little sticker that says “A gift of the Orrin McLeod Endowment.” Every time I check one out, I am thankful to him.
Hehehe–my aunt grew up in Cocoa Beach, FL, where the best waves for surfing were never anything *but* bitchin’. 😀
I was a teen in the 60s and living in Redondo Beach, CA one of the big surfing communities, so everything other word you heard was bitchin’. LOL Just reading the word brought back so many memories. 🙂
Oh, and I loved the blog. If that was the pile of books for LANG one has to wonder how big the pile was for a book like JUST or GAME.
–Alice
As a little girl I lived around the corner from a library, yes, one of those Carnegies. It was tiny but to me seemed immense. I got my first library card there, and eventually could walk there all by myself to browse and check out books. I made a vow to read every book that had ever been published by the time I was 21, at which point I envisioned myself relaxing with periodicals and new novels. Because I read British fiction I knew that some children studied Greek and Latin but I figured I was up to the job. I think I was eleven or so before I realized that, Greek and Latin aside, I wasn’t going to make that deadline. This was the Rockridge branch of the Berkeley Public Library. Now i am served by a terrific system: King County Libraries in the Puget Sound area. When a new LRK comes out I buy two copies, one for myself and one for my mom, and reserve the audio book so that I may immediately experience the story a second time after that first read. Cheers, Laurie!
Here is a photo of the library of my youth in Connecticut. I had many happy times wandering the musty quiet stacks:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y129/ctmoonmaid/LibraryConnecticut.jpg
Unfortunately, the town outgrew it and moved into a large anonymous concrete structure. It has never felt the same. But I love libraries and I am grateful that my tax dollars go towards them.
–Marjorie
I go to my library every day, as I don’t have a computer at home and need to check my email somehow! LOL My library is the East Library in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
My local library is fabulous. I can go online to find and request books that are in their catalogue, AND to ask them to order books that aren’t in their catalogue yet. Last time I did that it was for Language of Bees, and I got the usual confirmation email back plus a note thanking me for letting them know a new Laurie R. King was coming out because the responder also loves your books. While my local branch is fairly small, there’s no charge for bringing in books in any of the other branches, and no charge for putting a reserve on books that aren’t currently in. Of course, that no charge is only good for the first 30 requests in a year, which I’ve run through by March, but it’s only $.50 after that. I’m the patron who notified them that their Save to my Booklist option had an upper limit of 100 items. I’m rather a bibliophile (addict).
Without the Burnaby Public Library my life would be much poorer. Come to think of it, when I first had BEEK and MREG recommended, this was the library I requested it from. And since then I’m made sure they ordered every hardcover of yours and recommended them to the librarians to read themselves.
Elementary school is tough if you are a shy, shrinking sort of girl I was. The library was a hiding place from the bullies on the playground at first and then magicaly a doorway into other lands. You could escape to all sorts of amazing places, learn about anything, be an entirely different person. All this was mine, in return for shelving some books and keeping my voice down. A life long love was born.