All We Ever Wanted Was A Blog

Tomorrow, I drive north to San Francisco, for my last reading of the summer. This one’s at the San Francisco Main Library — my book was chosen for the “On the Same Page” citywide book club — and I’m looking forward to it tremendously.

I’ve been a library geek my entire life. When I was in grammar school, my first ever “job” was at my local library, where I spent my summer shelving books and hand-typing card catalog cards and taping up books with cellophane covers. I did not get paid for this work; I thought it was worth it just because I got first access to all the Lois Duncan and Stephen King novels.

Even now, I am an avid customer of the Los Angeles Public Library. About two-thirds of the books I read come from the library (otherwise, I’d go broke buying hardbacks), and the citywide library system here is fantastic. I can go online, search for the book I want, put a hold on it, and then the library system will locate the nearest free copy of that book and send it to my local branch (three blocks from my house). They even email me when it’s arrived.

My friends are always surprised when I talk about checking books out of the library — most seem to have last used a library sometime around college graduation. My only hope is that the recession is reviving interest in our local libraries, which (thanks to budget cuts) could use all the support they can get these days.