Booking Through Thursday - April 2

Deb at Booking Through Thursday blog's question for this week is:

I saw that National Library week is coming up in April, and that led to some questions. How often do you use your public library and how do you use it? Has the coffeehouse/bookstore replaced the library? Did you go to the library as a child? Do you have any particular memories of the library? Do you like sleek, modern, active libraries or the older, darker, quiet, cozy libraries?

I accidentally deleted my post for this while working on this weeks, so I will try and reanswer just so it's available.

I use my public library about once a week at the moment. As soon as they get the online catalog working again I will be using it much more, but since I can't check what books they have available at the moment and reserve them, my frequency there to pick up books has declined.

I don't think the coffeehouse/bookstore has replaced the library. I love the coffeehouse/bookstore as DH and I always make a point when we go out to eat occasionally a few towns over to go to their BAM and sit, read and drink coffee, but it would never replace the library for me even if I had one in my town. The library is free and yes browsing books is free, but I would never have the time (or feel right about) reading a whole book while enjoying coffee at a bookstore and putting it back up. Now I would enjoy browsing the book enough to see if I would enjoy it, but the library does that for me - I can get the book and if I don't like it I'm not out of anything except some time. I still enjoy book stores for the ability to browse and then lovingly take home a lovely book (or twenty).

I loved the library as a child. My mom would take me for reading time occasionally which I enjoyed but I enjoyed checking out books the most. We had a bookmobile that would come down our street during the summer and I remember loving to go into there and check out books - it was so cool!

I will take any library - ours has an older feel, but I have been to a huge newer one when I lived in Raleigh and I loved the sheer number of books available there. Ours is quaint. It will soon be moving and I am looking forward to that. I think they will now have more of a reading area. Right now there are mainly tables plus a few chairs in the magazine section. They will also have more room for more books and that is exciting too!