Musing Mondays: Where Would Chick Lit Be Without the Library???

Musing Mondays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading every Monday. This week’s question asks bloggers to contemplate….

The local Catholic school board is closing its school libraries, and parents and teachers –and even the students– are in an uproar. Budget cuts demanded that the board choose something to get rid of… they choose libraries. As such, many librarians have lost their jobs. And, the board is moving the books to the classrooms, instead. They feel that it is a good solution.

What do you think? Should the schools be without an actual “library” room? Is this a good solution?

For more on this week’s Musing Monday check out Should Be Reading’s May 16^th post:

Lip Gloss and Literature says…where would Chick Lit be without libraries? Where would I got to get all my books, audio books and ebooks? Libraries are a great resource that I know I do not want to lose anytime soon. Read on…

“Medicine for the soul;” that is what the Inscription over the door of the Library at Thebes reads and so it has been agreed upon since the creation of the library. I mean just look at all the quotes on the sanctity of libraries, dating back to the Roman age:

A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life.
Henry Ward Beecher

A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where history comes to life.
Norman Cousins

And my father always took me to the library. We were both book addicts.
Cornelia Funke

To add a library to a house is to give that house a soul.
- Cicero

Libraries are as the shrine where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.
- Bacon

I go into my library and all history unrolls before me.
- Alexander Smith

A library of wisdom, then, is more precious than all wealth, and all things that are desirable cannot be compared to it.
- Richard de Bury

It is, however, not to the museum, or the lecture-room, or the drawing-school, but to the library, that we must go for the completion of our humanity. It is books that bear from age to age the intellectual wealth of the world.
- Owen Meredith, from Inspirational Quotes About Libraries, Librarians and Book Collections

For more quotes on libraries and any other topic, please visit Brainy Quotes at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/library.html#ixzz1MX78Ga34

It doesn’t end there. A library is not just a concept. It is so much more. I remember back to kindergarten, when I was first introduced to the library. Once a week, our class would walk together to the library, where Mrs. Young, the librarian would read us a story, and then suggest a few others that we might check out. Then, we had maybe 20 to 25 minutes to scour the shelves and check out or two books to bring home for the week. Next to recess, it was the most exciting activity of the school week.

Sex and the City: The Movie
Carrie and Mr. Big get married
 at NYC Public Library

I have never lost my fondness for the library. I remember when I lived in Boston when I was a late adolescent, college student and young adult in the working world. I frequented the Boston Public Library every chance I could. I was reading so many books while taking the T (Boston’s underground subway system) to work every day. It was at the library that I was introduced to the writings of Sophie Kinsella and Marian Keyes and my love for chick lit grew stronger. Libraries have even evolved with the changing times, offering ebooks, audio downloads and more through Overdrive Media service so that library patrons nationwide can upload their favorite and new release books, audio books, videos and more.

Today I visit my local library semi-regularly, most often to check out the latest selections at their book sales. More often, I use my local and state library’s website to locate books if interest and to download materials I’ve checked out. And, yes, I do own an ereader, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t still love to go to the library. Even if I don’t check anything out (although usually I can’t resist), I could get lost in the stacks of books for hours.

"Authors" of Jersey Shore fame

Clearly, I am not the only lover of the library. Look at all the memorable sightings of various libraries in the mainstream media. In Sex and the City: The Movie, Carrie and Big plan to tie the knot at New York City’s famous public library. Many celebrities from all over the world have joined the campaign, urging young ones to READ, including the Cast of the Twilight and Harry Potter movies! Check out all the celebrities who’ve written (or maybe co-written?) books lately. If Snooki and J-Wow are penning novels, books must be the thing to be seen with. Finally, if it’s on MTV, you know it’s “Hot” and the slapstick, hit comedy game show, Silent Library is proof that Libraries are more popular than.




Twilight and Harry Potter cast support READ campaign

 

So please, if you like to read, I urge you to support your local and state library. I know I want to be able to take my kids to the library one day so that they can create some of their own fond memories surrounded by stacks upon stacks of books.



Celeb, Jennifer Garner,
walks her kids to
and from the library



I do not work at a library. I am not affiliated with a library. I just love to read and I think it would be a shame to see another staple of our culture lost in the economic windfall of these tough times.

What’s your opinion on the library?