We can look and take advantage of the libraries; historic sites; bridges; highways; liberty; that our ancestors worked and sacrificed to build. And it’s all so easily discarded in favor of the shiny and the new, so easily axed from the budget.

How will WE be remembered?

Significant chunks of my memoir involve the importance of public libraries in my learning to read and keep pace with school mates after my long hospital stay. It would’ve taken me years to learn to read had it not been for a childrens’ librarian with a heart of gold., who sat with me for hours each week until I was pretty much up to grade level–this in less than a year! I hung out in libraries on a regular basis throughout my adolescence, until going off to graduate school. Also in my memoir is a lovely memory of my brother, 10 years my senior, taking me to the New York Public Library soon after my beginning high school. At that time my brother worked in the lower stacks, and he gave me a complete tour of the entire process from ordering a book upstairs to following the slip throught the shoot, all the way through the stacks.
As a results of my library experience, and my gratitude, I have always considered public libraries as another Alma Mater.