The One Place We Miss Most
Authors, teachers, and creators are switching gears to reach their audience virtually. 2020 is the year to interact with authors thanks to Zoom calls and Google Teams events happening at all times, in many places we can’t travel to. This week I attended a library event with author, Patti Henry Callahan. Remember her from Becoming Mrs. Lewis (click for book review)? Hosted by Auburn Public Library, she spoke on the importance of libraries for the writing process.
Many in the book community are missing libraries right now. But so are parents with first time home schoolers, remote business employees, coffee shop lovers, music and movie bingers, and all of us.
Going to the library is part of life. And I am not exclusively referring to the main street, brick buildings with colorful barcode cards. Google is a type of housed resource collection. Streaming services and Audible are places we go to be exposed to new media. Community centers that loan tools, building blueprints, seeds, and resource pamphlets are geographically unique libraries.
Libraries are critical spaces for idea simulation, resource collection, and project completion.
What I miss most about the traditional library is uninterrupted time. Whenever I wound up inside the stacks, my mission-oriented mind took a break. I’d browse pictures in a cook book, read snippets of poetry, or flip through glossy magazines. Somedays I’d catch up with a friend I hadn’t seen in a while. A phone on silent seems like an impossible thing, until you step through the doors of the library.
Experiencing this special place like before is something we are going to have to wait for. A place we won’t take for granted ever again. I think it is okay to still support public health and practice safety precautions while missing the way things used to be.
When I can return to the library again, to daydream for a few hours, I plan to thank three staff members, check out twenty books, not think about the time, and snap a selfie in the stacks. What sort of public spaces and experiences are you aching for these days? Drop a comment below so we can know what places in our communities are missed.
For wonderful books about libraries, check these titles out.
