Oh Hermione, I really wish I could!
So, one thing that I've missed during lockdown is going to the library. The library has always been a constant for me. Where ever I've lived I've belonged to the library, and trips have been part of my weekly routine for as long as I can remember, especially growing up. I rely on the library to help me find the books for this blog, and for my own personal reading. I love hunting down a book I'm after either on the shelf, or online on the library catalogue. It's like being a detective! And one of the nicest feelings is knowing I have book waiting for me at the library, like a long lost friend. I love books, I just can't help it! But what happens now we can't go to the library? In the biggest time of doubt I've ever experienced in my life! Hermione's advice just doesn't cut it anymore!
I rarely buy books theses days, and if I do I generally buy secondhand real, paper books. Call me old fashioned, but I love the tangible nature of a real book (and they smell nice too!). As well as libraries being out of action, I've obviously been unable to visit any bookshops, so I've had to begrudgingly embrace the world of the eBook. I rarely buy eBooks because they baffle me somewhat. You can't see how far you are through a book and I find it hard to measure my progress any other way. I like to sit down with a book and see that I've read a few millimeters or a centimetre on a good day! I can't get my head around a percentage! Numbers are not my thing! So, very reluctantly I've been buying kindle books for this blog over the past few months in order to keep the blog up and running, and it's been a very strange experience. Luckily children's books are never too expensive (no cheeky VAT), but not having the convenience of free books at the library has been very weird indeed! In some ways I resent having to buy these books, but what I resent more is having to read them electronically. You loose out on the full book experience, it just becomes another screen you have to engage with during your day, which is frankly, rubbish!
I don't know what the fate of our libraries will be after COVID-19. I can understand why there is no way they can reopen yet, but with budget cuts and popularity reducing the number of libraries in the UK anyway, I worry that COVID might be the end of libraries as we know them. What will happen to them now? Will they become entirely obsolete? I really hope not! Will the only people using them be me, and an old lady who enjoys a large print Mills and Boon? Probably... Will they become online catalogues, where you order up what you want, in a click and collect style shopping experience? Or will they go online entirely?
And libraries are not just about books you know! If we loose the physical library building we loose baby and toddler groups, story time session, computer access, lego clubs, repair shops, and all those other lovely things that happen in our local libraries. I so, so hope that in the post-COVID world we still retain some of what makes a library so special, even if it has to change a bit.
Thanks for reading, L x
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