Skip to main content

Libraries are my guilty secret

Why have I got a picture of my books in an article about libraries? Read on.

When the austerity measures imposed on local government started to kick in, in the UK, (yes, I've been brewing this post for a while) people were campaigning against the closure of libraries. Libraries are probably viewed as an optional extra, whereas things like rubbish collection aren't. I was glad the people were campaigning because it made me less guilty about the fact that I love libraries.

When I was a child the library assistant at my local library, who knew me because I was friends with her son, gave me the adult allowance of six library cards, instead of the children's allowance of three. I was so happy about that.

When I was a teenager I started collecting coins. One of the things I particularly liked about this hobby was that I could store them in little envelopes, which were like those long drawers full of the tickets from books, that library assistants would go through when they were looking for your books, using that particular walking actions with their fingers. I too could riffle through my little coin envelopes in the same way.

Why do I like libraries? Partly it's because I don't like owning books. I like books, but I don't like owning books. If you came to our house and saw our tall Billy bookcase with double-parked books, and the other Billy with a couple more shelves of them you might wonder if I'm being truthful. Probably over half of them are ones I owned before I got married, or have been given since, so even though they're not all "mine", that's still quite a lot. One of my sons challenged me the other day as to why we couldn't get rid of some of them. I started going through them. "That was a present, and that one, and that one, and that one. That one has a reply from an author I wrote to. [Bill Bryson - what a lovely man.] That one's really interesting." And so it goes on. OK, so apart from those books, I don't like owning books.

It probably stems from when I was at University and my books would come and go in cardboard boxes, which were heavy and bulky. I only really want to do that with books that are worth it. Also, very few books are worth a reread, so I'm happy to borrow them. So what makes me feel guilty? It's because I know that authors get a tiny amount of money when I borrow one. However, Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell published an article in The Guardian recently, Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming, so while authors and illustrators are championing them I'll feel less guilty.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

20 years of blogging: First post

Back in 1999 it mostly cost money to run a blog (from what I can remember). You had to sort out your own hosting. Then Dave Winer  made on offer on his blogging platform editthispage.com  for a 60 day free trial , so I was away. So what was my very first post? What words did I choose to post for all on the internet to see?  23 December 1999 I'm stil trying to decide what to do with this. Click on the skull to add your suggestion. Oh, that's not very good is it. A typo in the second word too. The URL was morrissfamily.editthispage.com. (I think. Everything I say could be unreliable, because it was a while ago.) I also created an FAQ page that day: Who are the Morriss family? We are just a normal family with a dad who likes exploring the internet. Why don't you have more information? Because I'm not sure want I want to do with this site. I think there are no typos there. The idea was that I would share family news. Come back in January to see what my next
Post a Comment
Read more

Follow up to Matt's "Three feelings" post

This is in response to Matt 's post Three feelings I don't have a word for .  (A blog post in response to a blog post. How quaint.) "Imagined vastness" sounds like a very specific instance of the more general "sense of wonder" or sensawunda . For me I get that feeling of imagined vastness when reading Iain M Banks' Culture series. I don't get the Stack Overflow vertigo he talks about, but I do have a feeling of holding something almost physical when I've got something on the clipboard and I haven't pasted it yet. It's similar to the feeling that I (maybe it is just me) get when I know there's a bit of coffee left at the bottom of the cup. Atemporal hotel lobbies is something I can't really relate to. I do have my own unnamed feeling though: Cycling to work It's that moment when I whizz down our sloped drive and start pedalling up to the road. Because I WFH I go out at lunchtime these days, and the feeling just isn't the sa
Post a Comment
Read more

20 years of blogging: fourth post

4/1/2000 Things are moving   We've had the letter from Wycliffe about "raising support".  They want us to aim that 25% of our income comes from other people by the end of a year, and 50% by the end of two years.  Other news: I've officially asked for voluntary redundancy Spoiler: after 4 years of trying I didn't even get to 20%, so I was paid a salary after all.
Post a Comment
Read more