HMMM, is that all the public library means to me? "A collection of books"? Or "An apartment for holding books"? I suppose I never really gave it much thought until I saw the advertisement for this competition, to be honest! But I'm racking my brains now!
The best way to picture exactly what the library means to me, is to think about what it would be like if the library never existed. No public building providing the use of computers, photocopiers, tapes, CDs, magazines, videotapes, and old newspapers in a peaceful and quiet atmosphere . . . and, now, hang on a minute, now I know I've forgotten something ...oh, yes of course. . . books!
Books, the reason why public libraries will always mean so much more than any radio station, TV channel, or Internet web site ever will! Where else can you experience any emotion, situation, place, or time, depending on what book you take down off the shelves or what page you open it at!
Experiencing any emotion you could care to mention, love, hate, joy, sorrow, astonishment, desire, excitement, worry, admiration, fear, guilt, jealousy, regret, pride, shame, and that's just all the ones I can think of!. With books you can travel back in time, to, for example, an eye witness account of the Famine, or one of Shakespeare's plays, or Anne Frank's Diary and many classic novels and major historic events.
You can also travel millions of years into the future, with science, if you like the serious approach, to see what life will be like then, as you obviously won't be around to see it, unless of course, you've decided to have your body frozen after you die, until science develops a way of curing the disease you died from, and can bring you back to life! (Something I read in a library book!) You can also opt for science fiction to view the future, if you prefer an escape from reality! Although many things first mentioned in science-fiction novels have become reality, such as airplanes, spaceships going to the moon, etc! So maybe what you read as science fiction today may not be as far from reality as you think!
You can also immerse yourself in the brilliant authors of the present day, such as Maeve Binchy, Seamus Heaney, Patricia Scanlan, Alice Taylor, Nuala O'Faolain, Marita Conlon-Mckenna, Joe O'Connor, and many, many more! Books on the latest films and TV programmes, for example The X-Files, Trainspotiing, and all manner of literature by talented writers to suit everyone's tastes and opinions.
You can also immerse yourself in the brilliant authors of the present day, such as Maeve Binchy, Seamus Heaney, Patricia Scanlan, Alice Taylor, Nuala O'Faolain, Marita Conlon-Mckenna, Joe O'Connor, and many, many more! Books on the latest films and TV programmes, for example The X-Files, Trainspotting, and all manner of literature by talented writers to suit everyone's tastes and opinions.
All the diverse emotions, views, and situations, you can experience that challenge the way you think and look at things, sometimes changing your life forever! Libraries provide you with the opportunity to experience these emotions, situations and views you would otherwise never get a chance to see.
Books actually work your brain, and your imagination: you can't read a book by staring mindlessly at it, like you can with a TV programme, letting it all drift over you. You have to take part, feel the emotion of the writer or poet, involve a piece of you in the book. Your ideas and emotions create the pictures, and affect the way you interpret the book. For this reason many people can view the same book very differently, and certain parts of the book or writers' views may have a more profound effect on you than it does on others. You can discuss a book with friends and notice that they saw things you didn't in its pages. You can't do that with television. There you don't take part, you just watch, and everybody sees the same thing; you are just a dormant observer.
Books are a universally powerful medium, all that movement, emotion and life, packed into each page, created by people with that special gift for setting words alight, ablaze like fire. The words may not flash in front of you on a silver screen, but you don't miss anything if you blink, or have to answer the doorbell, or take something from the oven!
All these brilliant ideas, thoughts and feelings contained between the covers of books, are displayed on the shelves in your local public library. Books are a unique and priceless medium, pieces of people's imaginations, life-experiences, and knowledge, forever preserved to be of enjoyment or use to others.
Libraries provide people with the right to this information, both fictional and factual. Not to just a few people (which would be the case if libraries did not exist and all books had to be bought). They provide everybody with the right to knowledge. The library is just as important to a six-year-old child as it is to a 65-year-old pensioner or a 19-year-old student. There is no age at which you don't benefit from the public library. (Apart from the obvious - under one-year-olds!)
So there it is, what the public library means to me, the place where everyone has access to the wealth of information contained in books, and all the brilliant images that words can create, just waiting for you to benefit from their contents! In describing the library, I feel this quote applies: "I find a great part of the information that I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else along the way!" - Franklin, P. Adams. The more you learn, the more knowledge you want to acquire, you'll always be coming back for more, as one book leads you on to another!
So, thanks to public library books, the right to information will never be out of anyone's reach. (Even if they are physically out of your reach, like poor "vertically challenged" me, there's always a friendly, helpful librarian on hand with a foot stool, step ladder, or just a long arm!)
