While sitting at my computer, I browse the eBooks in my local library and download them to my HP Touchpad. I like the convenience of scrolling the choices at any time of the day or night and I never have to worry about returning it to avoid an over due fine. But it is sad to know that the joy of browsing the stacks and leafing thru the pages of a title to decide you want to read that particular book will soon be a pleasure of the past.
Ever since I learned to read, libraries have been a second home. The town I lived in as a child had a Carnegie library my siblings and I passed on the way to and from school. It was in those days that my sister, Adeline and I developed a life long attachment to libraries, not withstanding the disaster of our being so heavily in debt to the library when we were 7 and 8 years old that it took all one summer to pay off our over due fines.
Libraries were a free source of entertainment for us during the great depression and remained so over the years, enriching our lives beyond description. I have fond memories of listening to Adeline's library records of famous Broadway musicals as the two of us worked a jig saw puzzle over morning coffee when our children were in school.
Knowing books are on their way out hasn't stopped me from buying them though. I often shop the sale table in my local library and I order them electronically from time to time.
Carnegie Libraries are still in use today.
In 1992, the New York Times reported that according to a survey conducted by Dr. George Bobinksi, dean of the School of Information and Library Studies at the State University at Buffalo 1,554 of the 1,681 original buildings in the United States still existed, with 911 still used as libraries. Two-hundred seventy six were unchanged, 286 had been expanded, and 175 had been remodeled. Two-hundred forty three had been demolished while others had been converted to other uses.[13]
Wikipedia: Carnegie library
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