My earliest abiding memory as a child is of being taken to the library by my mother. I could only have been about 4, it was certainly before I went to school. I remember the overwhelming size of the library, the quietness and the mystery of peeping up at towering shelves that seemed as tall as giants.
Whilst my mother took her time choosing the latest romance, I was allowed into the children's section, and I as ran my tiny fingers along the shelves and touched the spines of books a whole new world of adventure opened up before me. I can remember that I was allowed to borrow a book about the adventures of a teddy bear, which looked so much like my own well loved tatty teddy. The book was huge, well, to my 4 year baby arms it seemed so, and I carried it ever so carefully all the way home.
Although I didn't know it at the time, this first visit to the library would spark a life long love of books, and even after many thousands, possibly millions of pages later, that love for books and libraries has never diminished.
Here's my latest read from the library...
Last year I borrowed 135 books from my library
I went on numerous adventures all over the world
I travelled to the past and to the future
I witnessed crimes and murders
Saw kings and queens toppled
Peeped through curtains,
Waited at bus stops,
Traveled by high speed car
Saw love affairs unfold
And read and read and read....until my eyes ached
Saw love affairs unfold
And read and read and read....until my eyes ached
But not only that....
I attended my monthly reading group
I took part in a craft market
I borrowed audio books
I borrowed DVDs
I used a computer
I researched
I made friends
I laughed
Libraries were visited over 265 million times last year
Remember Libraries are not all about books and if we don't make good use our libraries
we lose something very precious
..."I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library"...
Jorge Louis Borge
More about National Libraries Day here
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