Ever since I can remember, I have had an abiding love for libraries.  As a young child, the library meant the slightly musty smell of the century-old building where I could explore as many books as my heart desired.  I had been an early reader, and the possibility of endless books, all filled with words and waiting on the shelf for me, was tantalizing and irresistible.

As I grew older, and moved towns, the library became a cramped space in a tiny room in City Hall, where the librarian would set aside books she thought I would love.  When the local government threatened to close that library because of budget shortfalls, my indignant fifth-grade self organized a petition, and got my fellow precocious bibliophiles to help me protest at the council meeting.  Needless to day, faced with a group of irate twelve-year-old book lovers, the council voted for the library to remain open.  Today they have expanded and moved to a beautiful new building, and information is easily available in that community.

Fast forward to college, where the library has long served as the traditional refuge for undergraduate English majors.  It was there that I discovered brilliant literary criticism to help me write papers, a small browsing collection to help me keep my sanity, and the fact that libraries were a place I couldn’t imagine living without. 

I have now made the library my career and life’s work.  I cannot fathom what would happen to our community without the amazing information libraries provide.  Where else would a child discover the wonder of words and worlds beyond her normal scope of life?  Where else could an elementary student learn the importance of advocacy and the necessity of having a voice?  What other building would shelter frazzled students in search of a quiet refuge?  And what other institution can provide information to every seeking mind, regardless of age, race, or economic status?  This is my library story.  I am certain each of you also has one of your own.  Please share it with everyone you know, and support your local library by voting for the millage on August 3.