kareina

I really enjoyed reading aryanhwy's post today about her relationship with libraries, in part because hers was so hugely different from mine, and I started to type a reply to it to say so, but it quickly grew into an entire post, so I decided to put it here instead.

As a child the only library I had access to was the school library, to which the whole class trooped down the hall once or twice a month; we were permitted to check out one or two (depending on which school I was at) book(s), and it was made clear that if we forgot to bring it back for the following trip we would be in big trouble. At no time did anyone ever hint it would be permitted to ever enter that room in between special visits as a class, and there was always a lecture about how to behave and much angst that we would do something wrong (like speak too loudly, which, given my hearing problem, if I spoke at all, I did) and get into trouble.

Once I got to high school I was in a very small (200 student) alternative school that had very little budget. The library was a room no bigger than my current home office, with a few stacks of shelves. However, we were permitted to spend as much time in there as we wanted, and I made very good progress reading my way through the fiction shelves during the six years (grades 7-12) I was there, but only looked at the other shelves on the rare occasion I had to do a report for class, and, since I hated writing, I mostly arranged my classes so that I wouldn't need to (the advantage and curse of attending a school where the students get to dictate their own learning choices).

When I got to Uni I had already found the SCA, so I spent very little time on any of the six campuses I attended as an undergrad--I showed up for classes and went home promptly thereafter (rarely ever needed the full amount of time allotted to complete a lab assignment, either, so I wasn't there much). I went to the library only when I needed books to write a paper and found it very annoying to have to make the trip all the way across campus from where my classes were, tedious and unpleasant to hunt for relevant books among the tons of books that weren't useful for my paper topic, and bothersome to have to carry them back to the library when I was done. I loved the lectures, labs, and exams, and hated doing research (which felt too much like "shopping" to me--a quest to find something specific among huge piles of things I don't want--it always takes ages and only rarely yields what I was looking for).

Then I went to grad school and discovered that instead of bothering with books I could read interesting journal articles that are actually specifically relevant to what I am doing, and instead of "research" meaning looking up stuff in books I could do research by going out into the field and doing mapping, or into the lab and generating data. So much more fun! Later, journal articles started to become available on line, and I didn't need to go to the effort of walking all the way to the library, I could just download them. And I didn't need to bother with heavy paper copies that get lost, I could just read the much nicer pdf (with searchable text!) and file it in a logical system of folders (and keep a record in my citation tracking program as which folder each article is in).

Yet another reason I didn't like libraries--we weren't allowed food or drink! I have always loved best to eat while I read, and to eat while I read. Looking at books while not eating is just not as much fun. No wonder I did my reading at home, and mostly contented myself to reading fiction, which was fun to read over and over again.

Even so, reading her description of of her relationship with libraries, and I find myself kind of envious...