Reading books allows for a specific experience not accessible through other mediums. This is not to say that reading is necessarily better than watching movies or television – I love a good film as much as the next person. However, at the adult level, most books are not the sort that you finish in one sitting. The reader takes small doses of the book over a long period of time. The only other medium that I can think of that has anything close to this feeling is a television series.
Let’s face it: not all books live up to our expectations. This disappoints us as readers, but at the same time, it allows for a subtle benefit as well. By reading disappointing books, our expectations lower, priming us for success in the next novel that we read.
Though I wouldn’t be so bold to speak for every librarian in existence, I would be brave enough to assume that most of them have an essential love of reading, learning, or at least media. This is the reason that the Library works to bring such a breadth of opportunity to its patrons, ranging from the items available through our lending system to the Summer Reading Program aimed at maintaining learning in children during school break. However, sometimes things come up in our lives that keep us from what we love most.
It's getting down to the end of the semester, and everyone is anticipating being released, or in some cases finishing altogether. It seems that there is hardly a better time for some college-related trivia.
Spring is upon us, and Windex is in the air. This is the season for cleaning, and in my experience, cleaning can be quite dangerous – you never know what you’re going to find. Sometimes we hide things for ourselves or for others on purpose or find things as a pleasant surprise. After all, who hasn’t found a couple dollar bills stashed away or rediscovered something that they believed was lost? This happened recently here at the Library. When rehoming the dust bunnies in our store room, we found some posters for National Library Week just in time to display them. This was a nice find.
It’s time for one of those little-known quasi holidays. May is National Barbecue Month! With the weather starting to warm up, people are beginning to go outside not only out of necessity, but for pleasure. What goes better with tailgating and gardening than a little bit of barbecue? Perhaps ice cream, but the Library doesn’t have a program on how to make ice cream (though we do sometimes let the teens attempt to make the biggest ice cream sundae in the world).
Has it ever occurred to you why some things are what they are? There are so many arbitrary things that we see every day and recognize immediately as symbolizing something else. However, it isn’t always clear why these symbols are what they are. For example, a friend of mine recently was looking at her coffee cup and found herself wondering about the logo for Starbucks.
Oftentimes, the worst results come from the most innocuous actions. We can slice ourselves open with a knife while chopping carrots and not think a thing of it, but paper cuts have us griping outright. Most significant injuries are caused by silly and often embarrassing mistakes, and the things that we think should do the most trauma often don’t.
Warmer weather brings fairer dreams of vacationing to distant, luxurious locations. While I dream of the exotic hills of Ireland, my reality takes me more believably to the rural mountains of North Carolina. This is not the first time that I’ve taken this trip. However, there is a critical difference that changes the way that I approach it. Now, I have no one to take the trip with me. It is a sixteen hour drive from where I live to where I want to go, which by myself is no small undertaking.
