MY, HOW YOU’VE GROWN!

I remember the old days, when you entered the library like it was a sacred place. Everyone was quiet, and I was really impressed by the sheer amount of little index cards that tracked the volume of books that existed on the shelves. Not only that, but the way they could track all the borrowers.

I can recall Miss Goodnuff, sitting behind the desk in her horned rimmed glasses, hair in a bun and print floral dress with socks rolled down to the ankles wondering why she never married. She had the power: SHE was the librarian.

If you wanted a book, and books were about the only thing you could borrow, you took the book to the desk, where rubber stamps determined your destiny for the next month. In fact, I kind of miss the beaurocracy of it all. The stamping of the card, the cardholder that was pasted securely on the inside back cover that was the due date. Then they got lazy and used little stickers, one over the other until you couldn’t close the darn thing because of the piles of stickers.

Inhabiting the tables sat high school and college students, with open reference books and paper and pens, scribing what they researched, deep into it. On the easy chairs sat the pompous elite, reading the NY Times, legs crossed with penny loafers and reading glasses.

Today, as you enter, the first thing you notice is the swarm of children that populate the place, followed by legions of laptop users, some just to get away from their wives, some to read magazines, and few to borrow books. Our library has a food store/cafeteria where you can buy sandwiches and coffee and over sized and over priced cookies. If you ever took a cup of coffee or cookies into the library when Miss Goodnuff was in charge, she would have given you a stern reprimand, and tossed your ass out into the parking lot. (If you ever saw Miss Goodnuff, you knew chances were she had kept the cookies)

Today I did something queer, I borrowed a book! Queer in the sense that no one borrows books anymore. With electronic books, who needs one of those bulky things to carry around? Most people borrow movies, or tapes or books on discs, games on CD’s and DVD’s including music. Old Ben Franklin must be rolling in his grave.

I bring my book up to this old gentleman who takes it and places it on a flat bed about a foot square. Looking up into a computer monitor, he looks confused. He lifts the book up and places it down again, but still no read. He palms up his hands and shrugs his shoulders. I ask: “Does this mean the book isn’t heavy enough and has to go back to the shelf?

Old Miss Goodnuff would have stamped that sucker crazy and sent me on my way!