EDITOR'S COLUMN BY MARIETTE BURGER - The best thing I did so far this year was to rediscover the public library.
As a kid, my number 1 place to go was the library.
The small Fitzpatrick Public Library in Addo was only about a kilometre from our house, and every time I went, I would look wide-eyed at the colourful bounty of books I could take home to read.
I'm pretty sure no other kid could read the 'Goosebumps' series - or 'Grillers' as R.L. Stine's horror children fiction novels were known in Afrikaans - due to how often I had checked them out.
I would hole up in the library for hours, vowing to read all the books that lined the shelves. (I didn't make it.)
During my high school years, which were the fledgling years of the internet, I used the library computers to explore the new wonders that were now before me (which at first was a lot of online games, but eventually morphed into research for school projects).
Libraries were the way to sate my thirst for entertainment and knowledge, even the school libraries were a refuge.
As much as I love books and reading, I recently realised - during the furore that erupted as a result of the possible closure of the public libraries in our municipality - that I haven't set foot in one in years... which I blame on the dawn of e-books and a host of other distractions. After giving it some thought, I decided to take my kids to the library in Graaff-Reinet last week - a first for them. As I'm a mom who often reads with her two little children, and spending money on new books to read isn't very cost effective when you have a budget, I thought this a very practical idea.
Hoping to foster a love of reading in the next generation, we entered the library in Graaff-Reinet's Horseshoe last week and, yup, few things beat the excitement I get when I see a shelf of books, an array of opportunity.
The air was wonderfully musty and the building's silence palpable, only punctuated by the smack of the doors leading to the outside. We quickly, and might I add without fuss, had our library cards opened, with each of us walking out of there with a choice of books in hand.
(Keep in mind that you do need to produce your ID and proof of residence when you apply for a library card.)
The upset caused by the threatened closure of the local libraries has convinced me that libraries remain important cornerstones of a healthy community, giving people the opportunity to get lost in wonderful stories, do research and educate themselves - at no cost - while at the same time providing a sense of place for gathering.
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