Going To The Library

I was, as my Canadian friends say, simply gobsmacked to realize what lay in store for me when I go to the library in a few short days. In preparation I got on the library’s website to try to figure out if a few of the books I hoped might be available were indeed there. I was lost and confused and had to call the library for help in navigating the site. The librarian couldn’t have been nicer and stepped me through the process from logging into the site with the library card I got last year and only used once, my previous card lost years before. Amazingly the top 3 books I wanted to get were available in the system but at other branches. They will be at my branch by Monday or Tuesday. After helping me with a number of other things, explaining this and that, and even, when I explained that it was hard for me to go out which was why I hadn’t been back since I got the card last year, told me about the service now that would deliver the books I wanted right to my front door! I told her that that was very nice but it was important for me to get out, that I really wanted to come. After we got off the phone I returned to the site. I was simply dazzled.

The library system for New Hanover County is vast, there are 4 branches, and the one that is closest to me, though about a 20 minute drive away, is one of the nicest ones, quite lovely, and large. I spent some time on the site and put several books on hold. They all have to be delivered to my branch and when they are I will make my first trip out. The books I have on hold are:

A memoir by Anna Quindlen: Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake

The Stranger In The Woods: The Extraordinary Story Of The Last True Hermit, by Michael Finkel

The first in a mystery series highly recommended by my dear friend Katya who loves these books — Murphy’s Law, A Molly Murphy Mystery by Rhys Bowen

The two books I wanted most of all this first trip, the last two books in The Seaside Knitters mystery series by Sally Goldenbaum, Murder At Lambswool Farm and Murder Wears Mittens

And the books I am so delighted to be getting I just can’t tell you because I have wanted to check them out for years, the Moomintroll children’s books by Tove Jansson, Finn Family Moomintroll, Moominpappa’s Memoirs, and Tales From Moominvalley, (There are more Moonintroll books and they are in the system but I didn’t want to get them all at once!) and most especially, and I’m so excited to get it, a book of short stories by Tove Jansson called The Summer Book

There were SO many other books I wanted to put on my list but, even though I could have checked out 25 and in years past I would have — I used to carry a big cardboard box to cart home my library books — I wanted to only check out what I could read, even if I have to renew them which I can do online, and I can keep them for 3 weeks.

Having done this I explored the website more thoroughly and my jaw dropped when I saw all that it held. First of all you can suggest that they purchase a specific book and of course you are not guaranteed that they will buy it but there is another book of stories by Tove Jansson that I have wanted badly to read, it’s been on my Wish List at amazon for some time, and I put the suggestion to purchase in at the library. The book is The Woman Who Borrowed Memories: Selected Stories.

I then spent over an hour perusing the website. I could not believe that our library system has a Pinterest page, is on Instagram, on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and more! And then I clicked on a tab called “Read and Write.” I simply could not believe my eyes. Here it had 3 sections:

* Design your own books, newsletters, poetry, novels, and any other written content in digital and print ready formats using Pressbooks

* Authors, submit your eBook to SELF-e to have it showcased in the Indie North Carolina Statewide Collection while retaining all rights to your work. Readers across the state can discover your work with the potential for national exposure.

Submit your book to SELF-e now!

* Discover local content from self-published authors, top indie eBooks, titles from the Homegrown collection, and so much more.

Well dang… I can self-publish through the library’s tools! And so much more. I had no idea!

There are so many resources, booklists, bookclubs, research resources, an amazing assortment of digital books that you can download right from the website which I still can’t figure out how to do and the librarian told me it’s easiest to bring your kindle once and the librarian in charge of the digital books will get you set up and then you can download them right from your computer at home! Well, I never!

I cannot believe I have waited this long to go back to the library. I have already started a list of books I want to read in my account on the website. Not yet ready to put them on hold but nice to keep track of them there. I had planned on going Monday, and I might be able to, but I need to wait until they arrive at my branch from the others and Tuesday will be fine too. I’m so glad I looked into this and got several of the books I wanted. This is all so amazing to me.

So Sunday I will shyly venture out to the Stitch and Bitch meetup at the yarn shop downtown in the historic district, and the beginning of the week I will venture out to the library. Doing these two things is, while I realize some people would laugh at them holding such weight to me, huge forays out into the world for me. I feel bold and brave, even while my knees are knocking. And something else I want to do when I am out Sunday, something I did for years and years and years but haven’t in some time, I am going to stop at the store and buy myself a copy of The Sunday New York Times. This was a ritual of mine for so long except in those days I would go to Barnes and Noble on Sundays, buy the paper, get a latte, and spread the paper out on my table and just get lost in it. I would read the Sunday Times all week long, especially loving The Book Review. I am returning to books, to literature, to reading, and I am off late night news watching but I want to know what’s going on in the world. This will be perfect for me. And I so miss holding a real newspaper in my hands. I don’t care about the local paper but The Sunday New York Times… there’s a paper to dream about.

I am tiptoeing out into the world, a little at a time, and it is thrilling. I have no idea what will happen next, and I don’t need to know, but I now know this — when you open a door, even a little crack, anything might find it’s way in. I am, surprisingly, finding myself ready. And I am in awe. I do want to be part of the world afterall, whatever that might mean for me.