By DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills
I’ve always loved libraries. From the time I was a little girl, the excitement of stepping into a room with shelves and shelves of books ranked at the top of my source of entertainment. I was a shy and overweight child, and books were my closest companions. When I finished selecting what I wanted to read, the stack was usually taller than me. Those books took me to real places all around the world and infused the love of story. Every new page was an adventure. Perhaps that’s where the seed took root for my tagline, “Expect an Adventure.”
And yes, love of story inspired me to write. But it began with the awe of exploring the world of reading. My first trip to a library was in my hometown, Bucyrus, Ohio. Whenever I take a trip to Ohio, I have to drive past the library for a bit of nostalgia. A few years ago, I gave a writing workshop there. What a treat to serve where I first discovered books.
Over the years, our libraries have added music, movies, books on tape, and educational media for all ages. Many have entered the digital age. Computers and internet access are free to the public, and students of all ages can use the library’s resources. Our treasured books, old and new, are available in most libraries for e-readers.
Libraries are the core of a community. The doors are open to families from all cultures and backgrounds. These are meeting places for organizations and educational events.
Oh, yes, we still have to be quiet so others can concentrate.
Are you a patron of a local library? If not, now is the time for you to enjoy, explore, educate, and entertain the value of the written word.
What do you enjoy most about your local library?
DiAnn’s Library Corner
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Comments 31
Yes, I am a patron and of our local library. I love that you can get online and reserve books and just go pick them up. But, going in and just perusing the shelves; there’s nothing like it!?
I am a avid library user too and it started as a child as I would go every week to our local library to get books to read as I was a shy and quite child and all through my school years as I had a speech problem so stories would help me to take adventures and take me back to famous historical events like Little house on the prairie books were one of my favorite series too. When I became a parent and had three children I brought them to the library when they were infants and introduced them to the world of books by signing them up for story hour and various children programs through out their childhood years all the way to adulthood.
Hi, Christina, Oh, the world of books and what libraries bring to us. Thanks for keeping the legacy alive to your own children.
I grew a love for libraries later on in life and I’m so glad that I did. Oh, the books and adventures and information that charms one’s life that are shelved at each library! Thank you for this DiAnn!
Hi, Susan, I can’t think of a better way than to spend an afternoon than with my friends – books. 🙂
One of my favorite places where you will find adventures and new places that you will always remember.
Thanks, Irene, adventures we will treasure always.
My first library was a Carnegie library in Williamsport, PA. I loved that library! If fact, I had the opportunity to work there twice – once as a bookmobile librarian before I got my Library degree and then after I graduated before I found a job at a different library. Currently, I am the director of a small public library and I love it!
Hi Paula, Oh, you loved books for the very beginning. Thanks for posting!
When our new library was built I thought they should have had a Martha Troxel reading room because I go there a lot! ?
Hi Martha, I bet if you brought the librarians cookies and coffee, they’d name a room after you! 🙂
I love this question. The library has always been my favorite “go to” place. As children, my brothers and I would wheel an empty grocery cart every Saturday to our local library and load it up. I loved the “click” the little machine would make each time my library card stamped the due date! As an adult, we always took our kids to the library. Our son picked up a book at the post library and started reading it aloud to us before he entered Kindergarten. We were so excited! When we moved to Germany, the school principal kept the library open one night a week so our daughter KNEW the library and the school before she was old enough to be a student. Once she learned to read, she loved that I would set a timer at bedtime and again in the morning so she would get extra reading time. Whenever I find new Christian fiction books like yours online , I place a hold at our library and they buy the books for the library. Since reading is a favorite relaxing pleasure to me, I feel beyond blessed. We have a grown family of readers because of the library.
Hi Jeanne, what a delightful story. Thanks so much!
Bucyrus, Ohio. Small role. I was raised in Portsmouth, Ohio and I’ve driven through Bucyrus on occasion. I loved our library back home. I’d ride the bus into town and pick up a stack of books for two weeks. I’ve always loved reading. When they started the bookmobile, I’d get about 10 books at a time. Loved Agatha Christie. I think she’s my all time favorite author. Now I get books from the library electronically. I just love getting lost in the pages of a good story. Thank you for being one of my new favorite authors.
Hi, Patti, I know Portsmouth! Small world indeed! Thanks for reading my books.
Yes! Yes! Yes! My favorite place!
I’ll never forget coming home with the backseat of the station wagon full of my books. 🙂
Julie, thanks so much. We do love our world of books!
Absolutely! I’ve spent more time cumulatively in libraries than anywhere else. I even adopted a puppy that had wandered in on a very hot day…we had Missy for 15 years!
I’m going to the library today!
Kathleen, now who would have ever thought about a puppy from the library. Great story!
I have always loved libraries. My mother took me to the County library in the Courthouse when I was little. She also took me to the small library in the town I we lived in. I worked there as an assistant librarian one summer when I was 15. Why I didn’t major in library science I don’t know. I guess I ws just focused on music and hadn’t considered anything else. I now work in my church library as a volunteer and I love it. It has it’s perks too so I don’t mind.
Hi Connie, I worked as a church librarian in the past. Loved roaming up and down the aisles, touching the covers, noting how some are more loved than others.
I absolutely love libraries! I remember when I could get my own library card. The library in my hometown of Elgin, Illinois was super. It was old and had character and reading nooks. I remember checking out The Silver Challis. I’ve always loved history. Wherever we moved I always went to the library. We had the bookmobile some places. They were fun! In St Louis, I had two libraries to go to: the County System and a city consortium. The librarians knew me! We retired to mid Missouri. The librarians here know me! They wonder what’s wrong when I only check out a couple of books at a time! They are some good friends to have. Books are , too. My daughter got a job last year at her local library and is having fun at work! Yes to Libraries!
Paula, yes to libraries! I agree. They are the foundation of culture for every society.
I grew up going to the library and loved it. I started going back as an adult about 10 years ago. I love patronizing it!
Wendy, No matter how we prefer to read – holding a book in our hands and turning pages or on an e-reader, they inspire us.
I like this topic. It tickles to see how many of us share similar experiences with reading, and libraries.
In the small place, Brown’ s Town, In Jamaica, where I grew up, we learned to read early. The first library was small, but to us as children, it was as important as the school building, after church of course.
There was not enough room to “cuss a cat”, as the saying goes, but it was full of books and was always busy.
Our teachers pushed reading, and encouraged us to join the library early. I recall with nostalgia, the requirements for joining: W e had to be able to spell, if not write our names. We would approach the important person – the Librarian, and with boldness and expectation, we would pipe up: “Please, may I join the library?”
With a smile, she would ask: “what is your name?” We would say our names, and with happiness and pride, also spell it. She would then proceed to prepare the card, then hand it to us with instructions. With a mixture of pride, happiness, and expectation; we would then with a kind of reverence, tiptoe among the vast array of aah, books!, and with difficulty choose one, for one week.
I loved to read so much that I got into trouble as I got older. Instead of tending to my chore of preparing the lamp as it grew darker in the evenings, I would be lost in the woods with the people I was reading about, as well as straining my eyes in the dark.
Scolding was plentiful, and repeated, but my mother knew that I loved to read, so would tell me “chores first, then read as much as you want to.”
Frances, there is an article in your sweet story. What a legacy!
Some of my most fulfilling experiences as a child and beyond have taken place inside our neighborhood library. I remember being so excited when I was finally allowed to read books outside the “kid zone.” Since my mother named me after Gone with the Wind, I had to wait what seemed like forever to see why! Then, as a mother and now grandmother, I’ve spent many Saturday mornings camped out in a chair, reading a book of course, while the kids read, explored and perused. Libraries have been a part of our family always!
Hi Melanie, thank you for your story. I hope readers to these comments are as thrilled as I am with these touching accounts of our libraries.
We lived in Cleveland, Ohio when I was young but the area we lived in had just a small branch library. I am not lying when I said I was a favorite of the librarians. The branches numbers rose significantly after I would come through.
Hi Anna, I think you put reality to the saying, “I read everything I could get my hands on.”