#libra

There’s a tendency to resort to romantic cliche when talking about libraries; clearly in a digital age they aren’t a “sexy” alternative. Maybe I’m old-fashioned but I still believe that the core of libraries will always be printed words rather than screens or keyboards. In any town or city, you can walk in and pick up the works of TS Eliot or Brett Easton Ellis, extremes of taste that you can dip into and thumb through without having anyone nudging you to make a purchase. There really aren’t many things in life that can enrich you for free yet ask for nothing in return. ↗

— Nicky Wire

#age

Our library isn't very extensive," said Anne, "but every book in it is a friend. We've picked our books up through the years, here and there, never buying one until we had first read it and knew that it belonged to the race of Joseph. ↗

— L.M. Montgomery

#library #reading #dreams

Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation. ↗

— Walter Cronkite

#ignorance #intelligence #libraries #education

What a school thinks about its library is a measure of what it feels about education. ↗

— Harold Howe

#libraries #library #school #education

A library is a place where you learn what teachers were afraid to teach you. ↗

— Alan M. Dershowitz

#libraries #political-commentary #education

I grew up in libraries, and I hope I've learned never to take them for granted. A thriving library is the heart of its community, providing access to information and educational opportunities, bringing people together, leveling the playing field, and archiving our history. ↗

— Josie Brown

#education #information #libraries #education

We cannot have good libraries until we first have good librarians-properly educated, profesionally recognized and fairly rewarded. ↗

— Herbert S. White

#library-journal #education

Library stacks from this perspective are not a repository; they are a crowd. ↗

— Kenneth A. Bruffee

#education

But the central branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library was still a place of wonders to Tess, even if the book budget had been slashed and the hours cut. Her parents had made a lot of mistakes, a fact Tess compulsively shared on first dates, but she gave them credit for doing one thing right: Starting when she was eight, they gave her a library card and dropped her off at the downtown Pratt every Saturday while they shopped. Twenty-one years later, Tess still entered through the children's entrance on the side, pausing to toss a penny in the algae-coated fish pond, then climbing the stairs to the main hall. If she could be married here, she would. ↗

— Laura Lippman

#dating

The Poet at the Breakfast Table: My experience with public libraries is that the first volume of the book I inquire for is out, unless I happen to want the second, when that is out. ↗

— Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

#series #experience