My husband, Aaron and I on our 6th anniversary - shortly after our move to Indy.
Lately I have developed a great appreciation for public libraries. I certainly have never been "anti-library", but its only since I met my husband, an avid reader and library user, that I have fully appreciated their importance and all they have to offer.
It began with books on CD, specifically Harry Potter, since the unabridged versions were much to costly to purchase - upwards of $50 a book. My husband, then boyfriend, and I would listen to them on long car trips or I would listen to them on my commute from Eau Claire to St Paul, where he lived and where I taught 2 days a week. We would both get this little twinge of excitement when we heard the Harry Potter CD music play at the start of each new book. Of course we ventured out to other fiction - suspense and mystery novels were some of our favorites. We continued our love of books on CDs during our two years living in Chicago, listening to them on road trips to visit family in Indy and Eau Claire.
Once we moved to Iowa City, the library there was so easily accessible, unlike those in Chicago, so we started using it more for books, even DVDs sometimes, but with all the great thrift stores in Iowa City, we still loaded up our home with purchased copies of books, most at bargain prices, but still, our basement kind of became the library annex, with more books yet unread, than read. And we probably bought a good share new from Amazon or used from Half.com, its so easy to click and buy anytime of day, isn't it??
When we moved to Indianapolis, the idea of carrying loads of heavy books out of the basement was just slightly unappealing! Aaron and I both did our best to part with as many books as possible - we donated many to Goodwill, but still brought quite a load to Indy. Once we knew we would be in a smaller space here in Indy, we sorted through all the books again.......but STILL the other day, once I thought we had unpacked all the books, my husband unearthed yet a couple more boxes of books - so, the journey of sorting through books begins yet again!
The good news - the Indianapolis has a wonderful public library system. In our current situation of living in a smaller space and living on a strict budget, the library has been an incredible resource for us. We have checked out piano music, DVDs of movies and TV series, tons of books. I can't imagine how many hundreds of dollars this would have set us back if we had to by them all, not mention the space it would take to store them all. And of course, all the hours of enjoyment reading or watching movies we would have missed without access to all this FREE stuff via our local public library.
So, it just got me to thinking how truly lucky we are to have libraries. As I was heading to the library last week, it occurred to me, that without libraries, all these wonderful things would be inaccessible to those without the funds to purchase everything - and what a tragedy that would be. Libraries make these things accessible to everyone, regardless of income or financial resources - libraries are knowledge, as they say and I feel so fortunate that we have an Indy library branch just down the street from us*.
Now, when Aaron or I want to read a book or see a movie, we head to the library first - its saves us space, it saves us money and supports one of the greatest public services our country has to offer - so, if you haven't already, get out there and support your local public library - it would be a shame to ever see this invaluable resource die!
So off I go to sort through our books to what we can part with.......perhaps I will report back with my progress.
* This post has also been inspired by the budget cuts happening here in Indy - first, they were discussing closing libraries - so tragic, but now have closed libraries either on a Friday or Saturday each week - this prevented anyone from losing a library and from staff losing their jobs
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