What is a library?

It is a very changing world we live in. Everyone knows communication and access to information have changed tremendously in a few short years. The library is in the business of dispensing information, yet I wonder if your perception of the library has kept time with the other changes you have accepted in your daily life.

I am hopeful that when you think of a library, the image you get isn't an elderly lady in a bun saying ssh! and guarding her books. We have gotten beyond that, haven't we? After that, I assume your images are all different. Maybe you remember the colorful picture books of the children's department you used to visit or the magazines you browsed through while waiting for your children. Possibly you were a mystery reader once upon a time or loved paperback romances. Do you think those items are all gone? Or worse, do you think we have the same ones on the shelf and there is nothing new for you?

I work in a library, so obviously my perception could be different from yours. I picture a busy place, with patrons browsing shelves of every imaginable genre of fiction and both scholarly and popular nonfiction. People are typing away at computers, paging through the newest issue of a variety of magazines or checking out the latest cd or dvd. A man is chatting with a librarian about the latest David Baldacci novel or someone is stopping by on their way home or to the soccer game to pick up their items they have on hold.

When you think of a library, what do you see?