Libraries

Credit: NAF/Cartoonstock

Every fourth Saturday, I pick my three-year-old nephew up and take him to the local library. I'm generally opposed to offering free childcare for fear that it will encourage child procreators to procreate more children, but, in this particular case, I think it's fine to make an exception. My nephew is discouraging additional siblings well enough on his own.

To be clear, there is nothing wrong with my nephew. He's quite lovely, actually. He is just a normal three-year-old, which is to say that he's a moody narcissist with a natural inclination toward random acts of violence. I like to think that our monthly library trips are assisting with his transition from a miniature wrecking ball into a socialised human being, but I'm not overly confident. At least he is learning that, when in a library, one mustn't throw books, assault other three-year-olds, climb bookshelves, or fling all the colouring-in books off the art station and draw directly onto the table.

Most importantly, he is learning that libraries are magical, exciting places full of stories, pictures, games, and activities where he can explore, learn, play, and practice not destroying things. He can even take some of the lovely books home if he wants to. He does want to. He wants to take many, many books home. He'd probably take all of them if I didn't lie and tell him that the library has a ten-book limit.*

I don't actually feel bad about that lie as it should be a rule. Considering children like to re-read the same book 2,364 times, ten is more than enough. A ten-book limit teaches them that they should just take what they really need. It teaches restraint, consideration of others, sharing, and the benefits of delaying gratification. All vital skills if we want to raise a generation of environmentally conscious, considerate and unaddicted humans. As a bonus, using the library as a means of teaching life lessons means the next generation will hopefully be able to read. 

I'm not sure if my nephew is learning restraint, but he is learning that if he doesn't re-illustrate or reorganise the page order of his borrowed books, he can bring them back for someone else to read, and he can take home something else.

As a quiet environmentalist, there really is no better place to take a demi-human on a Saturday morning. They learn to value books and they learn that sharing, not buying, is perfectly acceptable and really very enjoyable. It is also a much quieter, calmer place to teach a child about the environment and cooperation than the park or a sports oval.

I know a library doesn't appear very environmental at first glance. It's an enormous concrete building that makes unnecessary use of artificial lights and heating. It is also regularly restocked with the remnants of mutilated tree plantations and old growth forests. I would argue that it is environmentally friendly, none-the-less.

There is no other institution in Australia that so strongly promotes borrowing instead of buying (particularly now that Netflix has updated its account sharing policies). At a time when it feels like everybody is trying to sell you something, it is lovely to know that there is still a place we can go that doesn't charge a joining fee and that actively encourages its members to borrow from them as often as they like. The only thing they ask is that you bring the items back intact when you're done, so that someone else can enjoy them after you. If my three-year-old nephew can manage that, anyone can.

Oh, they would also like you to be quiet when you are visiting, which is really a very sensible policy that should be standard for all inside places, most particularly open plan offices, waiting rooms, train carriages, and retail stores. 

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a library for all the other items that people buy but rarely or briefly use? For example, fancy cooking appliances, camping gear, exercise equipment, board games, snow jackets, toys, tools, and anything to do with babies?

People's homes would be a lot less cluttered and there would be a lot less stuff produced in the world if everybody could just go to a Clothing, Random Appliances & Paraphernalia library (generally referred to by its acronym) and borrow things they need short-term, rather than have to buy something, use it once, then find somewhere to store it for the next decade. Until that happens, at least we have libraries and can therefore reconsider the need for shelves of books taking up space all over the house.

What is the point of a book on a shelf? It just sits there, not being read.

Most likely some of them have been read and they are being kept because the act of reading them was so enjoyable that the owner hopes to do it again someday.

When they have more time.

And have read the five hundred and forty-seven other books they would like to read but haven’t got around to.

Okay, so maybe they agree that they probably won't have time to do much re-reading, but it is still good to keep them as a reminder that they have actually read several books, even if they now can't remember anything about their contents.

Inevitably, the owner of a very large bookcase will forget which books they’ve already read, and which they are still planning to read, so the entire collection will just serve as a reminder of things they haven't yet got to, things they don't yet know, and how much of their life has been squandered on things that are less enjoyable than quiet evenings spent at home with a pot of tea and a good book.

Owning a large, overstuffed bookcase certainly doesn't make a person more learned or interesting, although that seems to be a common misconception — at least in the case of anyone that conducts Zoom meetings or gives interviews from their living room.

Despite their best efforts to angle the camera so the only visible background is a well-stocked bookcase, nobody is fooled into thinking that the person being interviewed has read all of those books. Rather than being awed by their worldly wisdom, most of us are just thinking that the speaker is likely a compulsive bibliomaniac who spends an inordinate amount of time browsing bookstores and really shouldn't have agreed to this interview as they have a lot of reading to get to. (Nobody is listening anyway. We are all just trying to read the book titles and figure out their arbitrary filing system.)** 

The bigger the person's bookcase, the more unconvinced I am that they have read any of them, as anybody that spends that much time on the acquisition of books surely doesn't have the time left to actually read them. Besides, isn't a giant bookcase full of classic tomes overwhelming? Where would one even start?

It is much more efficient use of time and money to just focus your effort on sourcing one book, reading it, and then swapping it for another one. This is where libraries come in. Instead of filling your house with books that you want to read, should read and plan to read (but will never get around to), just ride your bike down to the local library and choose ONE. Possibly three if you have a few 'sick' days planned in the next month or there are no mini-emitters (children) in the house.***

One book at a time, we can all get into the habit of borrowing from our local libraries. It will mean fewer trees being chopped down to create unnecessary bookcases, save several forests from being pulverised to fill those superfluous shelves, less clutter in our houses, less to box whenever we move, less money spent on stuff we never get around to, less guilt about stuff we've bought that we never get around to, and more time for actual reading. Visiting a library also has the added benefit of making you feel like you are part of your local community without actually having to talk to anyone in your local community.

And if all of these reasons are not sufficiently compelling to change your book-hoarding habits, borrow a three-year-old from a friend or sibling and take them to the local library. Even if they spend the majority of the time attempting to update every section of the library from the Dewey Decimal System to their personalised and entirely incomprehensible book categorisation system, they will be thoroughly delighted by the prospect of being able to choose some (no more than ten) of those books and take them home.

If their joy about being in a library is not infectious, at least you will be helping to ensure that the next generation will be more open to sharing (instead of buying) and more respectful of our natural resources than the generations that came before them. Most importantly, you will be instilling in them the knowledge that there are very few things as wonderful as reading the first sentence of a newly opened book.

I would highly recommend you shut this device off now and go and do just that.

The Quiet Environmentalist

FURTHER READING

Bibliomania: the strange history of compulsive book buying | Books | The Guardian

Impact of Book Publishing on Environment – WordsRated

On the Difficulty of Getting Rid of Books ‹ Literary Hub (lithub.com)

The Cost of Reading: The Book Industry's Carbon Footprint | Book Riot

The case for public libraries: Contributing to a sustainable future — Living Libraries

Full article: Tomorrow's green public library (tandfonline.com)

Decluttering: How to part with your books. (slate.com)

*I also told him that it is prohibited to borrow books that other children are already holding. This is a very disappointing rule for a three-year-old as those books are obviously the best books and much better than the two thousand other books in the children's section. I'm sure there's an important life lesson here for him, but it's more likely that the only children getting wiser are the ones still gripping their prized books. Let's just hope those children grow up to become passionate librarians rather than real estate tycoons.

**Personally, I prefer the blurry background when watching Zoom videos. I feel those speakers are the most honest. Setting Zoom to the blurry background is the high-tech version of throwing a sheet over the pile of mess in your house and pretending it's an art installation. Blurry-background-Zoomers are not trying to convince anyone that they are an intellectual and have accepted the fact that everyone watching knows their house looks like a disaster zone and not even a live interview is going to summon up the will they need to clean it.

*** You don't need ten. Checking out ten books at a time is only suitable when the word-to-page ratio is under twelve and the people who are checking those books out cannot actually read the books themselves. They really only need three books too, but it is always better that they get ten in order to maintain the sanity of the parent who would otherwise have to spend two hours a day, seven days a week, following the same group of baby ducks around a farmyard in search of their mother. Is that you, Mummy? Oink Oink. No, you're not our mummy. Kill me now.

Published 05 May 2024