National Library Lover’s Month

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Stop hugging that library. No wait, my mistake, I forgot that it’s Library Lovers Month — and it seems to have come at just the right time as many local libraries are struggling during the economic downturn. So why love your local library?

Libraries are a sanctuary away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life; they offer security and peace and quiet. They are also a place where you can focus surrounded by likeminded people with the desire to acquire knowledge.

How to Celebrate Library Lovers’ Month

Love your library for what it is, a community meeting place or treasure trove of ideas. There is so much to be found there, including new books to read and guidance on research with papers you may have due. The people who frequent the library tend to be intellectuals, so who knows what kind of interesting conversations you could get into?

Why not push against the declining attendance of libraries and go and learn something new that will expand your knowledge of who you are, of where you live or what you do?

History of Library Lovers’ Month

It’s important to understand that not everything is available on the internet (yet), libraries can have vast digital stores of qualitative and quantitative information escaping from opinion led snippets and snapshots from online. There may be some crossover of information but in most cases libraries are a much more economically viable solution when looking for information than the internet.

It’s also important to know that libraries offer services that aren’t available on the internet, including free assistance in finding obscure information and borrowing a book that may not be available in the admittedly immense catalogue one can find on the internet.

One of the things that people often forget is that being a librarian isn’t like getting a job at the local supermarket. You want to be a Librarian? Be prepared to get a degree in Library Science. Yes, this is a thing that exists, and it’s necessary to become a librarian.

There’s more to a Library than just the books too! There are meetings that gather there that include everything from people from the Society for Creative Anachronism to other local organizations. There’s also magazines and periodicals, microfiche of local newspapers reaching far back into antiquity, and that’s just a start!