Weekly Geeks #7: A Large Library-Shaped Hole In My Heart
I really miss my hometown library -- both of them, the city and the county libraries. The county library was the one that I was free to use, but I gladly paid my yearly fee to the city so I could use their library as well. Happily, they are right across the street from one another. Unhappily, they're both pretty far from me now. Would I have become an expat if I had known what my Library Situation would be like?
This is the city library. It's a Carnegie library -- the first in Missouri and one of the first west of the Mississippi to be built using funds from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation. The library was dedicated in 1901.
This is the county library -- the building was previously a car dealership. 
Here I am at the county library back in the summer of 2006, doing what I do best..
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Here I am earlier this year, actively mourning The Library Situation. ..notice the two kinds of tissue that I'm keeping at the ready?
11 comments:
I know what you mean about missing a great library; and your photos are great. :)
I'm behind on the Weekly Geeks, but will be checking to see how to catch up. Libraries are a soul-saver and my library is like a dear friend. Can certainly understand your "homesick" feeling!
What a beautiful building the first library is in! And I love the car dealership one! We have a great library five minutes away, and I always think about it when I want to move.
At the time I lived in Algiers in was impossible to buy any printed material in the English language. I thought I would go crazy when I ran out of books to read...and I almost did.
I took to having a friend mail me books from England one at a time so that the customs people wouldn't be tempted to just let the box sit in the corner for a month or two. When a book finally arrived, regardless of condition, it was like my birthday, father's day and Christmas had all happened at the same time.
I would have killed for a library within an hour or two of me...
I feel for you on the library situation. We're getting ready to move to a new city and I've already tried checking out the library's online catalog only to find there isn't one! I am so going to miss the one I'm at now, but at least I'll still be within driving distance. I'll still be able to use it, but it won't be convenient anymore and I can only use some of the services, not all of them. :(
I can walk to my library. I live at one end and it is at the other. I used to work there until 2006. Now, when I go by, I get so sad b/c it happens to be going downhill. I try to stay out of it and let the newbie do her thing, but it is tough.
Look what book is on a recommended reading list: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90893175
I would be grieving my libraries, too! I love your photos of the Carnegie library (I love them, too, and too many of them are being replaced) and the old car dealership library!
The car dealership library rocks! My library is a former plumbing supply store - it has none of the style of that one! And Carnegie libraries area always cool. I can't imagine being library-less, I feel your pain!
i so so know what that library-shaped hole feels like. Last year our county system here in Southern Oregon shut it doors for lack of funds on April 6. at the time it was to be indefinitely. but partial funding was found for limited hours by late October. I was heartbroken and lost for weeks. I almost passed out when the librarian broke the news to me the previous December and then very nearly embarrassed myself by bawling tho i managed to limit my show of grief to a tear or two--until i was safely home and alone that is.
in one way it became a blessing in that I began writing seriously again last July. had to have my story fix!
beautiful pics! our county system had two Carnegie Libraries--one in Ashland and the other in Medford. Medford built a new modern building about three years ago. I haven't heard what they finally chose to use the Carnegie building for.
i hope you manage to find substitutes. it is good that you are online. i found a lot of resources for free ebooks. especially of the classics tho there are several publishers sites that provide samples of their writer's work in the form of chapter and whole novels. i did at least one post last year listing some of those resources.
Cool pictures, and dignified for books too....nothing like our building here in Ottawa, which they keep revamping to make more user-friendly and somehow they dont' seem to be increasing the books they have! We have a great inter-library loan system though, so we can request any book and if it's in a library in Ontario we can get it. this makes up for three years living on a sailboat where i read everything from how to catch crabs (crab pots) to Kathleen E Woodiwiss to Isaac Asimov, and I was 14! (I feel for Sam. I know how he feels!) We used to exchange books with any boat we came across, and there was tiny library in a house in Costa Rica that I spent my afternoons in...sigh, guesss I'd better blog about this! thanks for poking me/us!!! and great post, Susan!
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