Libraries for the Souls

imagined interior of Library of Alexandria

Book-lovers are almost always lovers of libraries.  (I confess to being both.)  Ask a book-lover about some good memory of a library, and I bet you will get a childhood memory.  My wife, for example, tells about her persuading the librarian to make an exception to the 3-book checkout limit because, as a child, she went through books so fast.  So helpful have been libraries to the human race that it is no surprise that the library in ancient Alexandria had over its entrance the sign:

"A hospital for the soul." 

Not that I have found all libraries life-giving or even conducive to learning.  I remember in particular one seminary library where the books were covered in dust, pages dried out and sometimes falling out because the radiators were set too hot.  Some books were wedged in horizontally above other books. And there were no chairs in the stacks area, nor even space between the rows of shelves to make oneself comfortable even on the floor.  That library cramped both books and people's spirits.

Most libraries I have experienced, however, have been life-giving. It interests me how that usually entails letting in important elements of  Nature:  Natural light, and clean air (even if that cleanliness is created by a good air-conditioning system).  Also, how helpful it is to have chairs and tables near a window so that readers can intermittently look up from their books in order to look outside to rest their over-taxed eyes.  And also so that they can look up from their reading to let their over-filled minds relax and expand. Expand so that the thoughts and feelings swirling from the written words can settle deeply into their souls.

One of the unrecognized contributions of the U.S. to the world has been its having been in the vanguard of establishing libraries free to the public.  A good number of older immigrants to the U.S. (such as the actor Kirk Douglas, whose parents came from Russia) tell how their parents were amazed that in the U.S. children could go to a library and borrow books free.  That accessibility has now been expanded through computerized search catalogs, as anybody who has been to a contemporary library knows.  I will confess that there was a romance in the older cataloguing method of index cards, a hole punched at the bottom of each card to keep it securely within the wooden drawers for alphabetical browsing.  That method also meant that every school-child could quickly learn the correct answer to the librarian's perennial question:  "Can anyone tell us what are the three main types of cards in the card catalogue?"  A child could raise their hand and answer, "Title, Author, and Subject."  Nevertheless, I do concede that the computer now makes searching a large library faster.

So those are the ingredients for my recipe for a good library:  Natural light.  Clean air.  Sunlight (not glaring).  Tables by the window.  Comfortable chairs.  A good cataloguing system for finding items.  Oh yes, there is one other ingredient I haven't mentioned:  Good content in the books. That is the real nutrition.

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Do you have a good childhood memory of a library?  Do you have a favorite library today?  Why?