New Community Center - The Library
I picked up my jacket/coat from the Encinitas Public Library Environmental Art Exhibit yesterday. So good to see the piece hanging in a kind of empty exhibition space.
The Encinitas Library is impressive. Beautiful building on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Full of folks, used books for sale, large computer area, art gallery, coffee and pastry kiosk outside. From as far back as I can remember libraries have always served as places of wonder and community. My mother recreated herself through books and magazines and early on figured out that if she was going to have time to read, we needed to learn to read too. What child would not be totally impressed by the huge stone lions guarding the entrance to the magical world of reading that urban main libraries all seemed to have in the 1950s?
Segregated schools in that same period were both a curse and a blessing. My segregated public grammar school fell into the blessed category. In addition to being taught by friends and neighbors with a vested interest in my and other students' personal and educational success, our teachers were creative and well educated. The principal was a genius who made sure that the school received all available funds and participated in city-wide educational and cultural programs.
And the library. Mrs. Elliot was the librarian. She looked like a picture book image of a librarian, smelled deliciously like both books and a lady, and all interested students to participate in library activities. The joys of opening a new shipment of books, learning to repair broken spines, cataloguing, and reading the latest Caldecott and Newbery Medal prize winners were tremendous to a young reader. (Visit the Newbery Library in Chicago if you have the opportunity.)
Members of the student library council were invited into the library during lunch hour. Being a member of the council and the invitation were high privileges. We competed with each other to participate as a team representing our school in book competitions on the radio.
These libraries of my childhood were quiet, reverential places, as were the libraries of my college days, and the University of Chicago library during the short time that I worked there. Today, libraries buzz. Small children collide with senior citizens. San Diego has libraries offering Starbucks coffee treats. The community rooms are open to meetings, arts and crafts. Books are checked out and in electronically. Courting folks meet at the library and go searching and finding, not for books, but for hook ups.
Libraries provide shelter for the homeless, day trips for the emotionally and mentally disabled, resources and information on community events, cool in the heat of the summer, and heat in the cold of the winter, computer services for the unemployed and others who may not have free access anywhere else, all in an environment open to everyone in the community.
Support your public library, national treasures.
The Encinitas Library is impressive. Beautiful building on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Full of folks, used books for sale, large computer area, art gallery, coffee and pastry kiosk outside. From as far back as I can remember libraries have always served as places of wonder and community. My mother recreated herself through books and magazines and early on figured out that if she was going to have time to read, we needed to learn to read too. What child would not be totally impressed by the huge stone lions guarding the entrance to the magical world of reading that urban main libraries all seemed to have in the 1950s?
Segregated schools in that same period were both a curse and a blessing. My segregated public grammar school fell into the blessed category. In addition to being taught by friends and neighbors with a vested interest in my and other students' personal and educational success, our teachers were creative and well educated. The principal was a genius who made sure that the school received all available funds and participated in city-wide educational and cultural programs.
And the library. Mrs. Elliot was the librarian. She looked like a picture book image of a librarian, smelled deliciously like both books and a lady, and all interested students to participate in library activities. The joys of opening a new shipment of books, learning to repair broken spines, cataloguing, and reading the latest Caldecott and Newbery Medal prize winners were tremendous to a young reader. (Visit the Newbery Library in Chicago if you have the opportunity.)
Members of the student library council were invited into the library during lunch hour. Being a member of the council and the invitation were high privileges. We competed with each other to participate as a team representing our school in book competitions on the radio.
These libraries of my childhood were quiet, reverential places, as were the libraries of my college days, and the University of Chicago library during the short time that I worked there. Today, libraries buzz. Small children collide with senior citizens. San Diego has libraries offering Starbucks coffee treats. The community rooms are open to meetings, arts and crafts. Books are checked out and in electronically. Courting folks meet at the library and go searching and finding, not for books, but for hook ups.
Libraries provide shelter for the homeless, day trips for the emotionally and mentally disabled, resources and information on community events, cool in the heat of the summer, and heat in the cold of the winter, computer services for the unemployed and others who may not have free access anywhere else, all in an environment open to everyone in the community.
Support your public library, national treasures.
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Yasmin