AS A YOUNG teen, I spent a lot of time in our local library. The only problem with it was its location nearly eight miles away.
We can walk to the Cashel library but we don't do it often enough. Today I brought Mia in for storytelling and I immediately went back into the zone of exploration that I once knew before I turned 14. The bookshelves here appeal to people under six feet tall because they're shorter than that and that means a young teen would be able to see through or over the stacks. That's how I discovered countless new worlds. But that was last century. In this century, the library has free wifi, plenty of high-speed computers and a patient staff that often walks around making sure everything is alright. From the looks of the content on several computer screens, it appears our local library opens its range of content beyond that seen by the local county council. On one hand, that's refreshing. On the other hand, it means the computers are more likely to be used for recreational purposes and not for discovery or creation. And while the recreation runs full bore with whispered comments and laughs out loud, the books go unopened and the stacks unexplored.
[Sent by Bernie Goldbach, creative media lecturer from the Limerick Institute of Technology, via free wifi on a Nokia E7 at the Cashel Library.]
# local
