In the US, it's National Library Week this week, and if you're in my age group or younger, chances are pretty good that you grew up knowing what Reading Rainbow is, and who LeVar Burton is. Today, LeVar sent out a tweet asking the internet about their favourite memory of the library, and I took some delight in a stroll down memory lane that was surprisingly full of fun and pleasant memories of the library.
My elementary school employed a wonderful, matronly, middle-aged librarian named (no kidding), Mrs. Christie, whose voice was just perfect for reading to us each week. I adored Mrs. Christie. I hadn't thought about it in years, but as I recalled her, I then recalled that she picked me in Grades 5 and 6 as a Library helper. This meant that during lunch recess, I and the other selected students got to stay in and go up to the library to tidy up, put away books, deal with the returned books, etc. We loved it! We'd work quickly so that we could then gossip and fool around. When we got brave, we started to explore the creepy dark room in the back where the movies and reels were stored.
But my fond memories don't end there.
I went to summer drop-in camps at the Yellowknife Public Library, back when it was just a refurbished house right on Franklin Avenue (it's now an Art Gallery), with its creaky stairs and floorboards, and the open-use basement, where many local meetings and events happened.
I used to spend hours at the public library after school because I had a crush on a boy in my class, and his mother was a librarian there, so I knew he would be there.
It's where I'd spend time reading about very grown up subjects as I did extra work outside of school--imagine if you will, a 12 year old Fancy reading up on Leukemia and Osteosarcoma and writing a brief report on it to give her Grade 6 teacher--for fun. Yeah, that happened.
When the Public Library moved to its location above Centre Square Mall (did I mention that I lived in the condo tower above the mall and Library?), and it was a large, professional-looking library, I spent time there with friends like Crystal and Amanda, doing school reports and gossiping about the very important lives of our classmates and friends. The paper Crystal and I worked on there on British Columbia earned an A. Our shared poetry project? Another A. It was also the place where, as my friends and I were talking about finding information on Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels for a social studies paper, a strange middle-aged man sitting by himself observing us stopped us to tell us that Marx was a drunk, philandering bastard who virtually let his kids die--lesson learned: teens shouldn't talk to creepy strangers in libraries.
As I got into university, I spent hours and hours in libraries on campus. During exams at U of A, the two main libraries would be partially-opened 24 hours a day for students, and I can recall being on a computer in the lobby of the Rutherford at 2 am, avoiding my studies by chatting in the Yahoo!Chat Books and Literature chat room, where I became friends with a very tight-knit group of chatters, some of whom I still keep in contact with.
So it turns out that I have many fond memories of libraries in my life. And it's somewhat sad that I haven't been to a library since 2010, when I was still in school, doing my Master's degree. Wow...3 years without a library? That's unfortunate.
I need more library time in my life...
...Wish you were here.
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