Wednesday, April 15, 2009

The Library Shelf

I am loving the library at the moment, what with needing to know things only written in out of print books (which is quite a perplexity in itself; why does it often take so long for people to figure out that a book is invaluable that the publisher has long since given up on it?)

I had this situation in mind when I organized the desk-wedging exercise last weekend, and left most of one shelf free to house the books I can have in three-week intervals. Up to nine, in fact, if nobody else needs them, though most of the time there's a lineup of people who do.

All this research I'm doing has made books as magical to me as when I was little and first reading on my own. I'm leaping into specialized material that isn't available to me any other way, from people I might never meet who live in places I might never go. It's quite a thing, really, this notion of recording information for the benefit of others. I may never have anything as useful to share but it sure does make me glad to be a writer.

No comments: