Nevertheless, the New York Public Library has been an epitome of Librariness for me since I was a youngster, so I had to stop by there while we were in the City.
The lions on the steps leading to the library have been there since 1911, and have had
several names over the years. Currently, they are known as Patience and Fortitude,
names given them by Mayor LaGuardia during the Depression. But I call them
Fred and George, after my favorite literary twins.
Lots of people were in the library the day we visited. I wonder how many were
tourists, like me, or how many had just come inside to escape the 100º weather.
Part of the reference section. No one's there because
everyone is looking up stuff on the Internet.
Shannon looks up a word in the dictionary so she can say she actually
used the library. (I did, too, but there's no picture. My word was "alabaster".)
3 comments:
You know, that's the one thing I was a little disappointed by with the new library in Fallbrook. It kind of feels like there are fewer books. Like the shelves are shorter and (it seems) fewer. I remember walking through those tall shelves as a kid and wondering how anyone could every read all of those books (of course, the fact that I was really short might've contributed to it too).
The Springville library is like that too. The first time I went in there to look for something, it was kind of like, "Wait...is there more? No?"
Also, I don't know what word I was looking up. But I was thinking of the ghost in that Improv video. Because it's silly. And it had alabaster skin. Or something.
I know what you mean. With budget issues, I think more library systems are keeping fewer copies of books and request lines get longer and longer. Libraries look sort of like bookstores nowadays.
What ghost?
I could've sworn you were the one who originally showed this to me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKB7zfopiUA
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