Ode to the Mighty Public Library

Public libraries rock. This is a fact of life.

Because I was fortunate to be born into a life of relative privilege, they rock for a whole bunch of reasons I’ve been lucky enough not to need to know. They offer free heat and light and air conditioning, free water, free bathrooms. Safe, quiet working space. Free Internet, free education, free social programs, free materials. Free talks, free workshops, free research help, and even, here in Toronto, free passes to museums, zoos, and other local attractions.

Public libraries are the best.

Even for someone like me who doesn’t use most of the things above, they still offer something that makes my life a whole lot better: free books that I can borrow, read, and return.

For a kid like I was, a voracious reader, this was a godsend. I could go to the library, wander the stacks looking for titles that appealed to me — as good as a candy buffet — and take out up to the limit of fifteen books. (Usually, I maxed out all fifteen.)

I went to the library so often that I knew most of the books in the relevant areas of the stacks — the children’s section was on the same floor as adult science fiction and fantasy, with YA hidden in the corner. I would sometimes take out books I’d already read because I felt like re-reading them this week, and I’d learned to avoid the “decoy” covers that looked like they might be rad but revealed in the course of back-cover copy that they weren’t the kind that interested me.

When I was a kid, Internet just barely wasn’t a thing yet, so I didn’t have the miles-long TBR lists I have today, and I never heard buzz about exciting new titles. Very occasionally, I’d look up books I’d heard about in the Children’s Literature section of our encyclopedia set at home or books I’d already read and wanted to read again, but most of the time, I didn’t use the catalogue.

When I wanted to learn about something, I took out a book: karate (illustrated!), magic tricks, codes and ciphers, crafts. When my sister and I wanted a hamster, I got a book on small pet ownership. I can still remember which shelves you had to head to for the non-fiction, though in my memory, they’re almost as tall as me, and I know that if I went back today, they’d come about to my chest. If not shorter.

When I wanted to read a series, I picked out whichever titles were currently on the shelves. I may remember the delicious anticipation of each monthly Scholastic book order, bringing the next volume of the Chronicles of Narnia, but I remember equally well how exciting it was to randomly pick up the final book of Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising sequence, Silver on the Tree, and embark on what felt like a treasure hunt, half wits and half luck of my timing, for the previous four installments. Maybe I’ve lost the art of piecing together the back-story from partway through a trilogy; or maybe I’ve just been spoiled since the Internet became so ubiquitous that I could place holds from the comfort of my parents’ computer chair.

Oh, that wonderful day! The library doesn’t just have an awesome vault of hundreds of books, but you can actually ask them to send you ones that don’t live on their shelves. It’s magical book delivery! But wait, there’s more: you can also set your holds to “inactive” and move up the hold list but, if you don’t have room in your life for a few dozen thousand more words just now, cede your spot to the next person when it’s your turn.

My parents and sister joke they could tell when I was coming home from university because they’d suddenly start to get automated phone calls for “Sah-ruh CRY-djeuhr” who had “… ONE… items being held” at our local branch.

These days, I practically traffic in holds: there are just so darn many books I want to read, and so little space in my apartment and wallet. So I watch my account climb the waiting list from 300 to 40 to 2, and then finally I get my grubby little hands on the goods. Usually, by that time, I’ve completely forgotten why I wanted to read it, so when the notification email pops up in my inbox, it’s like a little surprise just for me.

And there’s still more.

My local library also lends out e-book licenses. That means I don’t even have to go in to pick up new titles or holds. Admittedly, as of this writing, I may have gone overboard: half a dozen new titles on my Kobo to sail me through the long weekend reflects my childhood capabilities, not my adult ones. But I love being able to reach out through cyberspace for a new read — free, legal, in a way that authors still get paid for — and having a new book at my fingertips in seconds.

Ask anyone close to me: I’m not a patient person, and despite my best efforts, I’m pretty selfish with things that matter to me. But I’ll gladly wait for my holds to come in if it means that a book can be well loved, shared, instead of just gathering dust on my shelf until I donate it to Value Village or give it away. And I’ll always spend the weeks or months or years in book-less limbo rather than seek instant gratification through illegal downloads — those just aren’t cool.

As I get older, it seems like the library expands its holdings to provide many other community resources: instead of the old shelves of vaguely literary VHS cassettes (BBC Chronicles of Narnia! Tom’s Midnight Garden! Pippi Longstocking!), my current library now has as wide a selection of DVDs, new releases and more obscure, as I can remember from Blockbuster or other rental stores of bygone years. While I was still a teenager, my local library started carrying CDs — mainstream music, classical, spoken word, books-on-tape, you name it. And both the public library and my high-school library entranced me with copies of the latest glossy magazines for every niche and interest.

So Levar Burton and Zazi, Norbert, and Leon were already preaching to the choir when I tuned in. Of course public libraries were places full of fun and adventure — and best of all, any kid could afford what they offered.

Now that I’m an adult, I can pay it forward by contributing to make sure they stay that way… and not just because I can’t resist a 5-magazines for a loonie or the battered out-of-circulation copy of the novel I’ve borrowed five million times. But because libraries are important, for everyone.