troves of knowledge

This morning the girls and I took a walk to the local library.  The girls love our library days and wait with anticipation for the moment that we arrive at this beautiful place with pages of adventures just waiting to be explored.

I was especially grateful for the library as we sat and read book after wonderful book.  The girls scurried from shelf to shelf, arbitrarily choosing the next books to read.  Perhaps they search for bright colors or pretty covers.  I taught them to look for the books with the shiny Caldecott Medals and Newberry Honors on the covers, because then you know you have found something great.  But I doubt the girls cared much, as it hardly influences their choices now, several months later.

I think I take libraries for granted.  Where else can you find knowledge and creativity from across the globe flooding from shelves, begging to be experienced, to be learned, and to be used by so many visitors.  Novels about the hardships of living in Europe in WWII, atlases from during biblical times, architectural blueprints of medieval castles, light stories of fairies and princesses, encyclopedias of medicine, ABC board books, Hispanic culinary traditions... the world is in these pages.

Earlier this week, I spent a night at the library downtown: the Harold Washington Library Center.  This place combines the wonder of books with the fantastic beauty of architecture.  With ten floors of novels, music, reference libraries, computer labs, children's libraries, and so much more, there is no end to what one can learn in a place like that.

I found scores of books on the Chinese immigration experience to America.  Yet dozens of them were left unopened, as anything more I would learn could not possibly fit into my 10-12 page paper.  I love to learn.  Organizing it into a paper, on the other hand, is not quite so pleasant, which is why I find myself blogging about libraries as treasure troves of knowledge instead of writing about how the Chinese were treated when they began coming to this country.


I had better fix that.  Stat.
Page three of twelve, you are mine :)