Library Love

My favorite place to be is a library. Any library. I have visited reading rooms in the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, the British Library in London, and the Burton Barr Central Library, a soaring contemporary building in Phoenix, Arizona. There is the library in Los Angeles, one in Sedona, another in Lompoc, California. When I travel, I try to find the city's library and drop in for a visit.

I head for the main library in my own city at least once a week.

My library opened in 1908. Although today it has 17 branches, I stick with the Main building with its marble floors and columns. It has so many of the older books that I want to read. Nothing is better than rambling through the shelves and delighting in discovering a new...er, old...author.

I gravitate toward books of essays, especially the ones that feature their Dewey Decimal classification numbers handwritten in ink on the spines. Heaven. I have found thoughts and been informed by A.A. Milne, Nancy Mitford, and David Grayson.

I do so miss the little blue or white due date cards, though. They came in so handy as bookmarks. And the pockets that held those cards are gone as well. Now, I get a computer-generated grocery list of the book titles and their due dates.

Sigh.