Library Haunting

This article from Utne Reader has so many statements that so captures the feelings I have when I'm in a library.  Here's one of them:  "...enter a library, and we lose our hard surfaces and become porous, like paper waiting for ink. We breathe in the smell, that sweet intermingling of must and glue, and our troubles melt away. Our despair at the desk when the words wouldn’t come; our irritation at an imagined slight or a telephone that rang and rang; our sore back—all forgotten. Here, in the hush of the stacks, we can forget the day’s indignities; here, we can recover our curiosity and hope."  This spirited defense of public libraries is a must read.