Ah public libraries

There's this great library in Chicagoland that has all of these quotes from famous people about how great public libraries are. They build character, they are a public conscience, they are a national treasure, so on. That's how I feel about libraries. They're so nice. I might be a little obsessed, because I hunt out libraries and wander around them, checking out oodles of books that I know that I won't read, much as I buy books that I know I won't read. I suppose I keep hoping that some day I will have a chance to be that writer or professor who doesn't have any real work to do and wants to sit and read stuff for fun or enlightenment. Hah!

So I like libraries, enough to border on an obsession. I hunt out libraries in my area, and I bookmark and check their websites and catalogs for books. I like bookstores almost as much as libraries, and I spend hours in them. Literally hours. I bring work to do to the bookstore - like a lot of people - and then I wander around looking at books that I won't read and can't afford.

I've always wondered about that. I suppose that in some way Borders profits off of the coffee and the loitering in its cafe. And I suppose that this is a good business model. But what about the people who don't buy coffee? I suppose there's something somewhere that shows that it pays off in some way. The nerds attract other nerds, and eventually you get the super-nerd with the money to buy stuff who pays the bills for the rest of the herd, right? Or the climate you create by offering coffee and a place to sit (and maybe a washed-up or never-was musician) entices purchasing. Or, perhaps just being a huge bookstore with a wide selection of books that can be easily searched from the Internet is a good thing.

I suppose it's safe to admit here that I want to open my own bookstore. There was this used bookstore in Chicago that I went to a few times. Old building, twelve-foot or taller ceilings (really tall - can't remember exactly how tall), and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves full - jammed and bursting - with old and new books. It was not a small space, more like a medium-sized city shop for Chicago, and it was stuffed with books. It was kind of an interesting atmosphere. There was old furniture to sit on and read, and some back rooms and basement rooms to scour for stuff. But it was like finding needles in a barn full of haystacks. You had to climb over boxes to get to some sections, and you couldn't expect to find anything really. They were sorted according to bizarre bookstore logic - with fiction and literature separate and mystery and thriller and so on. And in one of the rooms was an industrial thermos of coffee. Weird. They were selling coffee, but it was hard to get around to someone who might make you pay for it.

This is random crap. I'm done. This sucks.