I love the public library system and use it a lot! Since I blogged about this last year, I decided to do something a little different. I read the article on the History of Libraries and found it very interesting. One image that popped into my mind was the scene in the first "National Treasure" movie where part of the treasure they find is the lost library of Alexandria. :-) That would be a treasure indeed!
It was fun to look at the progress of libraries from repositories of scrolls to something that looks a bit more like what we experience today. I found it bizarre that commoners in Rome could read books in the public baths . . . I would think that the water would ruin them! The library world has changed dramatically in the last few thousand years, but it's still all about access to materials.
While I enjoy electronic tools and the access they provide, I still love to read a novel in book form. (Though I've not yet looked at a Kindle and shouldn't probably knock it 'til I've tried it.) But when I consider the shear cost of trying to purchase all the books I'd like to have (either for the school library or for me personally), it makes me very, very glad that we have such an excellent public library system.
I regularly check out books from Scott, Carver, Hennepin, and now Dakota libraries. Sometimes it's a title for book club - I'm too cheap to go buy a copy of a book that I may or may not want to own. Sometimes I grab a bunch of YA titles to see if they're ones I want to purchase for the media center - though I mostly purchase based on book reviews and student requests.
Our public library system is fantastic! I am thankful that we have such a great resource so close at hand.
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1 comment:
I think your points about "access" are what we continually have to preach . . . and what makes libraries unique enough to survive thousands of years. Glad you found the article interesting.
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