A library of memories

This post really came about because a friend posted this picture on her Facebook account. Doesn't it bring back tons of memories? Not too long ago, borrowing books at the library meant queuing up at the counter, slotting the book's borrowing card into your own library card and then bringing the book to the librarian for the due date to be stamped.

This was the ritual I grew up with as a faithful visitor to Marine Parade Library (not the current one, this one was at the site where a spanking new NTUC Finest now sits.) We were then only given 4 cards each, so I would often use my parents' cards to add on to my precious weekly allocation.

Lugging home my hoard, I would dive right into the selection, even at the dining table and late into the night. To say I was a bookworm would be an understatement. Since I only received books as gifts on my birthday, the library was a necessity to to feed my reading obsession. In fact, my childhood would have been miserable if I didn't have access to the library.

The selection of children's books at the library wasn't terribly inspiring but I grew up reading many of the perennial favourites by Beverly Cleary, Mary Norton, LM Montgomery and Elizabeth Enright, for example. Each time a new book was released onto the shelves, it would be snapped up eagerly. Shows you how many kids were hungry for reading material back then.

Back then, all books were bound in sturdy hard covers with glossy sleeves wrapped in plastic, unlike the paperbacks in the library these days which get dingy and torn so easily. Somehow, I feel that modern libraries have lost a part of their essence without the musty smell and rich texture of hard backs.

Nowadays, borrowing and returning books is a simple affair, all automated at self-service machines. The convenience can't be beat, I have to admit, but a perverse part of me misses the librarian stamping the due date on each book with such convincing authority. Growing up, I actually thought being a librarian must be one of the best jobs in the world because you get to read all day (besides stamping the books, of course).

As proof of how much the library was a part of my youth, I still have these in my possession:

My old library cards!! How many of you still have these? Go on, call me a hoarder. In my defence, I only hoard the really important stuff.

"I remember being in the public library and my jaw just aching as I looked around at all those books I wanted to read. There just wasn't time enough to read everything I wanted to read." - Charles Kuralt