Tuesday 24 August 2010

I Heart East Melbourne Library



East Melbourne Library is everything a library should be. For a start, it’s a three-minute walk from my abode.

It occupies a handsome building on George St, where it stands out from the terraced houses with their wrought-iron verandahs.

It’s full of light, the staff are very helpful and it’s clean. You may laugh, but it is my opinion that if more libraries were cleaner, I would use them more often.

But a great library is not founded on aesthetics (and/or cleanliness) alone. What about the books?

Put it this way. I don’t know when I last wanted to borrow so many books from a library. When I actually borrowed the full number I was allowed. When I danced a little happy dance in the stacks at the prospect of so many books I really wanted to read. Old books. New books. Paperbacks. Hardbacks. Magazines. (New ones! In pristine condition!) DVDs. CDs.

And I love it all the more because books in Australia are crazy-expensive to buy (something about import taxes, I’m told.)

So I will bid you farewell, because it’s time to go to the library.

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