biblio biblio blah blah

i went to the public library this afternoon for the first time after its long-awaited re-opening. the renovation project had been put on hold for the longest time since they tore down the old library building, where i volunteered in the children's section from grade 3 to 6. today i walked into the new one and experienced that feeling of excitement, as if stumbling upon a treasure trove, that i feel whenever i see a library for the first time. i'm a geek in that way. some people have a thing for coffee shops, some have a thing for boats (ferryboats for grey's dr. mcdreamy!). i have a thing for libraries.

i don't necessarily like spending a lot of time reading in it, exactly. when i was in elementary school, i liked working at the public library because it gave me a sense of authority and superiority, since i was the one stamping due dates on the back of books that other kids wanted to check out. i was the go-to girl, strutting around the aisles in the kids section all adult and business-like. when our class made field trips to the library, the librarian made sure to praise my excellent work ethics in front of my class and, for once, i was the centre of attention. in my elementary not-academically-nor-athletically-standing-nor-prettiest-girl plainness, i loved my turn to shine (even though now as i write i acknowledge the full nerdiness of the fact).

in high school, my fondness for libraries waned as television and adolescence took over my life. other than required readings from english class, i read ym magazines and other similar literature that taught me about popular culture during reading breaks. i spent the rest of the time in front of the tv or gossiping on the phone. libraries, at this time, symbolized dreadful, lost weekends--research for social study debates, science projects (i'm just using it as an example; i never did a science project), group meetings with annoying assigned partners that i did not wish to be seen in public with. fun, not so much.

then came university. the library started play a significant role again when it became the main venue for a growing infatuation/flirtation/obsession with a member of the opposite sex. ever since "running into him" in front of the library entrance, many geography classes were skipped and spent instead in the basement of the library with the tall leather-jacket-wearing gangster wannabe boy who, coincidentally, worked in the medical library on campus. the fact that we were not allowed to make noise added to the excitement of our cute little rendevous; note-passing had never been so sexy (i again acknowledge the full loser-ness of the fact). the library was where we expected to find each other, in the northeast corner in silent study. the unspoken promise and understanding was a source of comfort in those days and, with him now alive only in my heart, a memory of beauty. just so this paragraph does not end on a sappy note, the same library was also where i unintentionally locked myself inside a bathroom stall and had to swim from underneath the door to freedom, not the most glorified chapter in my undergraduate career.

as the years have gone by, i've built a mini library that is uniquely me. every novel, language textbook, business reference, travel guide and self-help material was picked out for a specific reason at a specific point in my life, and they collectively shape and define who i am now. not everything in it has been read from cover to cover, but in my library i find meaning and identity, a prized possession. so today as i embraced that rush of adrenaline at the new and improved version of my very first library where it all started, it dawned upon me that maybe it's not the books that i love so much after all, but the place, tangible and intangible, where all free books call home.