A Room Without Books.....

When I heard that my neighborhood was getting a brand new library, I was ecstatic. As I child, I lived for the library. My Mom took me all the time and I read any and everything I could get my hands on, but as I got older, I changed and the library, well it stayed the same. Until recently, I was convinced that libraries had become a thing of the past, ancient relics long forgotten, left to fend for themselves, eventually, over time eroded down to nothing more than broken walls and rubble like a modern day Pompeii. So, as the libraries fell into disrepair and Boarders and Barnes and Noble(the library-esque fancy bookstores)were springing up all over, I, in time, dropped out of the library circuit and flew solo.

This new library however was changing things. It had restored my faith. I wanted to return to borrowing books. I yearned to take advantage of all the free materials available to me. I was shocked that a city located in a state as broke as ours was actually going to spend real money on a house of books. Spend they did, yes indeedy, twenty one million dollars in fact. That amount of money can work some serious magic. It was unbelievable and I was so thrilled it was a mere mile from my home. With it finally built I must convey to you how beautiful the structure is, they really spared no expense. The landscape gets two enthusiastic thumbs up. It even has a fancy pants glass rock garden in varying shades of blue nestled along side a crafty little succulent garden(my current fave foliage). The building itself resembles something mid century modern with lots of windows, open and airy. Clapping my hands together in library induced joy, I just couldn't wait to get in there and procure my very own library card.

The interior of the building was equally as impressive as the exterior. The entryway displayed smartly designed grey stone modern steps and beautiful wood accents. The downstairs housed a few closed off meeting rooms, one of them claiming to have Scrabble Night. I though it was kind of a cute idea, but Keith pointed out that you might want to reevaluate your social agenda if you live in LA and come to the library to play scrabble with strangers.

This was no library from my youth, you know the ones, constructed out of that familiar old depressing red brick. The inside housing the grossly outdated burlap orange and red chairs, the cheap middle of the road stained wooden tables, the berber carpet colored some heinous shade of gold. The heavy drapes, the American flag proudly displayed near the drinking fountain. It was as if they spent half their time as libraries and the other half as the local DMV. This sleek, brand new beauty had self checkout, lots of computers and overall a very modern uber-hip look as if I myself walked into a Dwell photo shoot. As we hit the top of the stairs we were there in the nerve center, the real inner workings of the library, and it was.............. about as big as my living room. This was the smallest, sorriest excuse for a library I have ever seen. I had just about as impressive of a collection as they did and I assure you I did not spend 21 million to obtain it. Nowadays at the library, you can rent dvds, books on tape, magazines leaving even less room for the actual books, you know, those things with paper and print. NO ONE was looking at the books anyway, but boy oh boy were the dvds flying off the shelf. I'm sorry. Did I mistake my local Blockbuster for the library? The only somewhat impressive book section was the Children's(which is good because I plan on using it as much as possible) but really. Twenty one million dollars and I swear they only spent about $2000 of it on actual reading material. Obviously that glass rock garden that I stopped to admire outside was worth every penny.

In the meantime, why don't you kick the Scrabble Club out of that conference room and put some books in there!!