Tuesday, April 16, 2013

A loss of words

For someone who lives in a small town in rural Minnesota, I’ve been spoiled.  For years, I’ve enjoyed the comfort of ordering books on-line from our library.  A few clicks, my library card number, and I hit “send.”

Notification comes by e mail, and I’m excited when I receive that e mail, knowing the books I’ve requested from a library miles away will be delivered by the Bookmobile within a couple of weeks.  Talk about convenient; it parks across the street from my day job.

How nice it’s been over the years, to request just about anything I want, to be greeted at the Bookmobile by a cheery face, and know that I have a month to savor the books.

Unfortunately, it’s all coming to an end.  I want to stomp my foot, to scream “it’s unfair!” and to insist they can’t do this to me and all the other loyal, rural book-aholics.  But they can, and “they” are.  Yes, I understand these things called budget cuts, but it doesn’t make it any easier.

Haven’t we, as a society, been greatly lacking in our children wanting to pick up a book to read instead of playing a video game, watching TV, or playing any other electronic device?  Instead of losing themselves in a book… allowing their imagination to expand?  Why make it harder for everyone to get their hands on books?

I feel like it is one giant leap backwards for mankind, and yes, maybe I’m just singing the “poor me” song right now.  But I know I’m not alone.  There’s a whole choir of us that are going to be singing the Library Loss song soon.  And it’s not going to be pretty.

4 comments:

  1. I have wonderful memories of the Bookmobile back in the 60's & 70's as a teenager living in Outing Minnesota. For someone who has never been able to be without a book on hand..I too would have been lost without that source for feeding my need to read! I so remember climbing up into that "bus" and picking out my books to last me a few weeks at a time. It is so sad that you are going to lose this wonderful source. Times do change..but not always for the better.

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    1. I know, it's sad isn't it? That's what Don said... it's been around forever. I guess I've gotten spoiled! :(

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  2. Just curious - what library are you supposed to use?

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    1. Our bookmobile comes from the Brainerd library. There are others around too, but the problem is by the time I leave work at night and drive to any of them, they're closed! Grrrr...

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