Over the past couple of years, I can say that my relish and perception about the library have taken a swift turn. Going to the library has become a part of my life and I find this experience worthwhile. Although people have their own misconceptions and proclivities with regard to libraries, inside a library is truly a great place to be. Besides the serenity it offers, I am very much covinced that the library offers more than just that.
More often, the library is being cliched as a place for university or college students who are tasked with projects and assignments or for writers, who in turn are labeled as quite fellows. Writers in general are indeed quite fellows. Their mindset and observation instincts differ as well. Writers need time, serenity and solitude to be able to pen down their ideas into stunning manuscripts before these compilations get to our local bookshops. Before they even become best-selling authors. Writers need distance and time.
I may say that it’s reasonably understanding why writers hardly make friends, as side their fellow writers and readership. The library seems to offer an unknown acquaintance to a writer. It gives a certain sense of bond and companionship, of which only the writer can interprete. A bond and companionship that outweigh what the eyes literally see. As side the rare conversations that emerges in a library, ie when someone asks if the seat nearby is occupied or not or asks for the direction to the washroom, the library avails something else to a writer.
It can be really interesting to be entirely surrounded by shelves filled with books. Books that are as old as nature, books that were printed the same day that you emanated, day-old books, books in progress and ideas yet to be turned into books. Books are everywhere. The scent that old books gives is breathtaking while that of the newly printed is magical. At times, I tend to value the worth of a book by the scent it gives out; the scent goes an extra mile to outlay further details that are not captured on the blurb. The journey it has made, the miles it has covered, the waters it has crossed, the hands it has come into contact with and the perilous times it has survived.
The library is truly a magical place to be. The serenity it bids, is simply astounding. Writers do love libraries; besides the long nights they spend reading or reviewing other books, completing their own manuscripts or perhaps writing down a short poem before going to bed. I reiterate that libraries are truly magical. Libraries offer a compilation of great works, stationed just within a stretch of the hand. Moments shared at the library are always surreal.
As said by Norman Cousins, “a library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where history comes to life.” Carl T Rowan is also quoted to have said that “the library is the temple of learning, and learning has liberated more people than all the wars in history.”
It’s very great to see that these great personalities in one way or the other see this in the same light. Their words have weight and undoubtedly the message is very lucid.
Libraries will forever be priceless and magical. Writers will forever love and cherish libraries and I hope you pass by your local library sooner than later, because in a library, events do take their own momentum.
princekennyjr 