I have loved public libraries since I was old enough to read. When I was a kid, growing up in NJ, in the winter after ballet class, I would walk to the library and wait for my dad to pick me up on his way home from work. Up and down the rows of books I would go, pulling random books off the shelves, reading a few pages, to find a book to check out.
I have had a library card for each county where I've lived in North Carolina since we moved here in 2000. Durham County, where I've lived since 2021, has an incredible multi story main downtown library, which was renovated several years ago. And it has so much more than just books and videos: computers, quiet work booths where two people can meet to work on a project, a calming room, a performance space, outdoor space, meeting rooms, comfortable chairs and couches everywhere to sit and read, all in natural light filled space from floor to ceiling windows. There are also six branch libraries spread around the county and the library will pull books from any branch and transport them to the branch of your choice. Of course, everything can be done on-line, from searching the catalog to placing holds and requesting delivery of the holds to the branch of your choice. In the almost four years I've had a Durham County Library card, I've checked out 164 books, which would have cost several thousand dollars to buy: all for free by showing something to identify I live in the county.
Stacks at Main Library, downtown Durham, NC.
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