In the beginning

I starting working in libraries in elementary school. I loved it. I loved the order and organization. I loved that there was always something new to discover, even among the shelves that I thought I had memorized. I worked in the school library in junior high school and then at the community library during high school. I loved helping people find what they were looking for, and sometimes showing them something they didn’t know to look for. I loved the smell and the texture of books: hardcover and leather and softcover had their own distinct combinations. The slickness of illustration pages in encyclopedias, the smooth finish of the paper in new books, and, of course, the feel of the pulps and superhero comic books.

To a young man, well before the existence of the World Wide Web and far before Amazon, librarians were alchemists. They combined esoteric formulae (also known as a card catalog and the Dewey decimal system) and apparently limitless familiarity with their esoteric tomes to guide querents in quests for enjoyment or knowledge. The best of them combined the two into an intrinsic whole and opened the path to entirely new experiences.

Yes, that’s a very fanciful description, but that was the magic I felt in libraries. To a large extent, I still do.

Used book stores were buried treasure vaults even when there was time and money to plumb the commercial book stores. Some of my fondest memories of my parents are the times spent exploring library and bookstore aisles, not to mention searching every spinning wire rack that held the most fantastic stories decorated with full-color artwork.

I’m sure that last bit horrified the comic collectors in the audience, but that’s where it all started for me.

My own stories may never have the opportunity to grace those shelves. All too soon those shelves may not exist in any meaningful form and that’s okay. Everything has a time and place. A huge part of my time and place will always be sitting in the aisle at the neighborhood bookstore, reaching out time after time to discover new worlds, new thoughts, and new adventures.

DDW