Friday, September 10, 2010

Making use of libraries

i have told people before that i don't like borrowing books, especially from a public library because i have an obsession of holding on to books. i love books and i love the smell of books and the creativity if provides to the mind. i can spend huge amounts of money on books and sometimes it feels like i have withdrawal from not having bought books in a while.

well, here i am at the iqaluit public library, after having chosen two books and now proceeding to write. while i was looking at the shelves and running my fingers through the Dewey decimal system and marveling who ever this Dewey was, i was struck with a thought that maybe to use the libraries is a much better economical and environmentally friendly way of consuming thoughts and knowledge.

so i have been visiting this library for a week now and amazingly there are people that are regular visitors and read regularly. you see, i have been biased all these years, maybe as an inuk, but more likely having had the luxury of books stores and southern high-mindedness, and always thought that not many people use nunavut's public libraries, but i have been proven wrong. or is it just iqaluit for its "cosmopolitan" attitudes and northern high-mindedness? when i went to Pang's library, i had opened books that actually had dust inside the pages, not only outside.

i was looking through the books and realized that the only way these "western" treasures can be kept open is by regularly using them and making sure that as many people use the facility. the more they're used the more books can be obtained.

anyways, i am saving money and paper and feeling very good about it

3 comments:

Emily said...

your entry makes me think of when my mum's house would be referred to as a library. As a kid, its pretty embarrassing to say that you lived a library-like place. Especially when I didn't read them, I had people read them to me.
Now my kids are going through the same things, I always have books around for them. They don't read them too much.
Maybe i should start looking around at the library for them, save money. Or, do you want to bring them there the next you go? :)

Throbbin said...

I've been down there a few times. The saddest thing is seeing the kids lining up to use the internet, while a whole library sits around them.

Could be that those kids are reading Wikipedia or news or other substantive material. I think most of them are on Facebook though.

That sign always cracks me up though - "No [time] limits on reading books" or something.

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