A LIBRARY LOYALTY

I found a library yesterday, quite the opposite of what a library ought to be.  It was such a business-like building that I nearly walked right past it, not expecting such rigid stuffiness from a place purported to hold magic in its belly.  Even as I approached the automatic doors, the building frowned down at me, as though it knew I disapproved of it and was disapproving of me reciprocally. 

Sterile and unfriendly as the building appeared, both inside and out, the attractions were too many and too great for me to resist.  I had come hoping to find books, and in this most important aspect the library did not fail me.  In open, brightly lit areas a majority of the library’s patrons were busy at computers, but I encountered far fewer signs of life in the forests of shelving.  It was darker there, but safer somehow, the books shielding me from the stern harshness of their home.

There were several books in particular that I wanted to find.  Though I found them in the catalogue and dutifully recorded their call numbers, the library was unwilling to relinquish them to me.  It had shuffled things around just to confuse me, I was sure of it.  It was determined to get rid of me. 

But I won out in the end.  I spent around four hours in that stark, unfriendly building.  The out-of-the-way chair in which I sat was not as comfortable as it might have been, but I was not to be dissuaded.  I found a novel in the teen section that required little focus and concentration, and read for characters.  Or perhaps I read for the author.  I have a feeling, after reading her work and the brief biography on the back of the book, that I would like her if we ever met.  So there were friends lurking in the wilds of this cold land.

I will go back, of course.  There are too many temptations there to keep me away.  I don’t know if this library and I can truly become friends, but we may grow to respect each other.  Perhaps it knows that it can never capture my affections as fully as another book-laden land which is as dear to me as any home.  It felt upon me the mark of another library, and turned hostile against one whom it suspected – quite rightly – that it could never claim as its own.

I’m sorry, Central Library.  You’d lost before you started – but maybe you knew that.  How could you hope, after all, to compete with a place like this?