Librarys and Memories

We are lucky enough to have a good public library system within our town.
We have 1 main central library and then 4 smaller suburb locations.
These are all the same company and so we have the pleasure of being able to visit any of the sites to return, order and borrow our books.

We have the normal library charges, you pay to reserve a book, there is a small fine if you are late returning a book, you pay a small charge to borrow DVD's and movies etc and they also have the latest books available on 1 week hire at $5 as they are the most popular ones. There is no charge to borrow the books.

So we use the library a lot, the boys love going there and they have a love of books, well they like the books but I know their love for them is growing and this I am grateful for. I want them to understand the joy books can bring into your life, I want them to know that reading is a great thing to be able to do.

However last week the City Council were discussing how they could save millions of dollars and one area they looked at was the library service.
They wanted to put a charge on all books borrowed, they want to close the libraries on a Monday and they want to reduce the already scant staff to even less.
They feel this would save plenty of money and no one would mind!
I think not, the library is somewhere people can go when they have 30 minutes spare in town, I love the fact people can borrow books free and given this current life at present I like that fact people are still reading books when they can't afford to buy them.

So do I like this idea? Not one little bit.

I am also lucky enough to have a great medical library at the hospital. Now I wasn't sure how important this was going to be to me until I started my study this year when I realised that they had the books that would help me answer my essay questions.
They don't have any charges and even email you when books are due back, in fact they will even email you and let you know that as no one is waiting for the books then they have renewed them and they are now due on the new date. All without you asking them too do this! I am truely thankful for that, because this week they let me know I had books outstanding and I was pretty sure I had returned them 2 weeks ago after finishing my essay, but a little check at home proved this wrong and hey presto I had 4 books of theirs.
Really thank ful to them for checking with me.

My memory of libraries takes me all the way back to when I was about 9 or 10. We lived in Kuwait at the time and I was going to the local (only) English School.
We had a little library at the end of the hall that was seperated by a curtain.
One day I had to go to the library to find a book and at the time I decided that I would just stand on the bottom shelf to reach the book I wanted instead of getting a little chair.
Well unfortunately the shelf collapsed and all the book fell off!
I got sent to the Headmistress who had me retell her what had happened and how it was going to get fixed.
I remember feeling about this big and a little less more in front of Mrs Bird, whilst I stood there and said sorry for breaking the shelf.

So even though I still use libraries, I have learnt that if you can't reach a book, then get a chair or someone else to reach it instead.