ANDRE BEGIN

Whenever I hear news about city budget shortfalls and the consideration of library services as a possible target of cuts, it saddens me.

Some might rationalize that a decline in foot traffic or a decline in the number of loans might make a case for a reduction in hours or even in the complete closure of a branch. I disagree. I honestly cannot imagine a community without a library.

Discussions like that tend to spur on memories of the countless hours I spent at my own neighbourhood library in my pre-teen and teen years.

We were so fortunate that there was a branch just three blocks away from the house where I grew up. That being the case, I could be found there a couple of times per week, especially through the summer months when school was out.

In a moment that may sound like a scene from an episode of “Young Sheldon”, I’ll never forget getting up on my tiptoes to stand taller over the circulation counter, attempting to drop my voice by an octave and asking the librarian if there was a minimum age to be able to go into the adult section.

Just to clarify, when I say “adult section”, I don’t mean materials that would be inappropriate for a pre-teen. I mean the collection of books that isn’t aimed at children or young adults.

By that point, my curiosity about the world was growing as fast as I was. The books in the kids’ section had served their purpose. Even non-fiction books spoke at a level that seemed “young” for me.

When the librarian told me that there wasn’t a minimum age, a giddy sense of elation and freedom came over me, as I marched into the adult section, proudly unaccompanied by a parent. In a matter of seconds my world had changed. In that moment, I felt like a “grown-up”, a feeling I remember to this day.

Once I learned how to use the card catalogues (even when I couldn’t reach the top drawers without a stool), the world was my oyster as I could find information on anything or on anyone, long before Google became a household name.

Along the way, searching through the catalogues and the materials taught me life skills in patience, persistence, resourcefulness, problem solving, deductive reasoning and critical thinking. Put all of those skills together and I think it helped to launch me as a resourceful and confident employee later in life.

But more than that, the neighbourhood library became a community centre for me.

While waiting in line to check out my books, I couldn’t help noticing the announcements posted on the walls. Through those announcements, I joined their stamp collectors’ club, I signed up for a babysitting course, I participated in summer book clubs and I attended special readings with authors.

Maybe the writer in me was showing its first signs when I started visiting the reference section with some regularity and really enjoying the peace and quiet of the “Shhh!” section for moments of creativity, working on school compositions.

In my 20s, it was in the periodicals section that I learned the value and the life skill of reviewing consumer magazines before making important purchases.

In my 30s, I remember using the library as an escape from a relentlessly noisy neighbour when I lived in a building with weak soundproofing. During that time, I checked out a fair selection of the materials that were offered on the topics of stress relief and meditation. Just the fact of being in the calm and quiet library, away from the nerve rattling noise below, was a welcomed break.

More recently, I have even visited the library as a solution for managing distractions, by bringing my little laptop to the library for uninterrupted writing sessions.

For the mere investment in a library card, the entire world is at your fingertips and sometimes, to a depth that the internet doesn’t cover.

I don’t think it’s an accident that I became a writer. I think that my appreciation of the written word and storytelling is in part because of our proximity to a library, not only in my community while growing up, but throughout my life.

Libraries are one of the reasons why I developed a love of reading early in life, which extended to writing as an art form and in turn, to the joy of creativity.

For that reason, to all the libraries and library staff, I send my heartfelt gratitude.

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Sincere thanks for reading!
Have a great day,
André