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Are You Reading This Aloud?
Recently I stumbled upon a scholarly controversy that I didn’t even know was a thing up to that point. Apparently some researchers doubt that people used to read silently before the middle ages. Several books and articles have been written on the subject. There seem to be two arguments for this theory. The first is…
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My Book is in a Library!!!
Ever since my mother told me, at age 4, that when you go into a library you can go anywhere in the entire universe, I’ve always gotten butterflies when passing through the doors of a library. For some people, it takes love at first sight or at the very least a trip to Disney World…
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Support Libraries. Support Reading. And Do Me a Solid.
At a time in our history when ignorance seems to be winning, when public education is under threat, and when people are increasingly afraid of fake news but seemingly unwilling to take steps to find reliable sources of information, it is extremely important that we support our public libraries. Libraries are under constant threat of…
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What I Love about Seattle, Washington
I’ve been living in this delightful city for 2 ½ years now, and I have never been happier. It sort of feels like I went to bed in Florida and I woke up in the Land of Reasonable People. Not a day goes by when I don’t look around in awe. How did I get…
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Take a Minute
My computer just took forever to boot up. I was sitting here tapping my foot and grumbling to myself until finally it started working and I had access to the whole wide world yet again. I feel much better now. Every once in a while I have to laugh at myself. Where does this impatience…
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Real Cities
The other day I was looking up the hours of operation of my local library branch in my newly adopted city of Seattle, and I discovered it is open seven days a week. I have to admit I started to giggle. Jacksonville, Florida, with nearly twice the area population, can barely manage to keep its…
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Service of Bibliomaniacal Proportions
According to Wikipedia, and contrary to popular belief, library usage is on the increase in spite of, or perhaps because of, our kindles and our nooks and our laptops. Unfortunately many local governments still target libraries first when they need to make budget cuts. The services a library provides can seem intangible to the public.…
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The End
The true sign of a civilized society is its investment in the arts and education. Once it has the ability and desire to support these pursuits, it has truly arrived at a level of sophistication that forever separates it from the barbarous dregs. Unfortunately in these troubling times more and more municipalities are suffering from…
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When Did “Intellectual” Become a Dirty Word?
I really want to try to avoid getting political on this blog. I really do. I would like to demonstrate that there are many things we can all talk about without arguing or debating. But walking up to work today, I swear to God, I thought my head was going to explode. One coworker was…
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“Enthusiosity”
There’s a streak that runs through my family, and it’s as wide as the Mississippi River. For lack of a better word, I call it “enthusiosity”. It’s curiosity mixed with a great deal of enthusiasm. My mother had it more than anyone else. She’d get interested in a topic such as Australian History, and she’d…