Library

When I was a kid in Indiana, some of my friends and I made our book collections into libraries, pasting little paper pockets into the backs of our books, making signout cards and then diligently writing down the names of the friends who borrowed them. I don't recall if we charged late fines, but it wouldn't surprise me a bit if we did.

As I got older, the idea of having my own library continued to intrigue me. Not a lending library, but a whole room dedicated to books. Something like the John Quincy Adams library, except inside the house and not a standalone building.

I don't yet live in a place big enough to have my in-home dream library, so my always-growing collection fills the shelves as fast as I can aquire them and fills several big plastic bins as well. The whole apartment is a library! And because it's a library, when Dan mentioned needing to read a non-assigned book for his Chicano history class, I quickly produced half a dozen history/sociology texts as well as a novel and book of plays on the subject. If he were fluent in Spanish, I could've offered him more. And that was just with the books on shelves. If I had bothered to access the bins, there would've probably been even more. Odd, because Chicano history isn't even one of my main interests. Imagine what he would've gotten had he asked for something in Tudor, Roman, Renaissance or disease history. Early 20th century lit. Foreign languages. Medieval Latin, anyone? How about Thai? Or perhaps some Maoist propaganda in the original Chinese?

Wow. Here I am more than 30 years past the opening of my very first library, in the business of lending once again! I'm really rather surprised and pleased at the variety I have, so long as we stick to the humanities. Hmm... Bunny's Humanities Library. Nice ring to it, huh?

So now the big question: Do I charge my husband late fees?