Alright, so I’ve always prided myself on being pretty geeky – even before it was cool – but I had kind of a blind spot for libraries, traditionally one of the geekiest places you can go. I remember the library as a place you got dragged to, generally because a parent had business there or because it was mandated by the curriculum at school. It was a place of dry boredom, reeking with the odor of old books which only meant more school. I was literate but I didn’t read; nothing was interesting. For example I’ve always loved science fiction but hyper powered spaceships, laser-slinging cyborgs and exciting space battles were somehow anathema to every author who ever put the genre to paper. Perhaps I just consistently stumbled on the wrong stories but action of any kind was an afterthought, if it was there at all. Books even managed to drain the fun from fun things. I found nothing well paced, gritty or cinematic, nothing imaginative and nothing transporting. Usually I just found reams of creaking sterility, stiffly philosophizing their way down walls of plodding text. Why bother to make this a sci-fi at all, I always wondered, if a plot is just navel gazing in the backdrop of space? Save me the wasted time and set your pedantic analysis of human nature in the mundane present so I can skip it.
I understand a little better now the value sci-fi can have on various “what if” thought experiments, which is likely what the narratives I encountered were getting at. Still, the books I found – of any genre – simply didn’t engage with my eccentric, highly picky, probably slightly autistic little mind. I fast learned that you literally can’t judge a book by it’s cover. Anything that looked interesting was just going to turn out to be boring. So I abandoned reading.
Thus the aversion to libraries. If you don’t read, what use will you have for a place crammed with books? Borrow something you’ll never touch let alone finish, then inevitably forget to return and get into trouble for? Sounds like a load of unnecessary stress to me.
Somewhere in my late teens I finally discovered Warhammer 40,000 – my one true literary love – and barren disregard was replaced overnight with ravenous obsession. As long as the novels and short stories kept coming, I read enough for it to count as a hobby. I could get my precious 40K off the shelf at most book stores though, or that awesome shop which sold all the cool-as-fuck models. Libraries were still superfluous to my needs. As my twenties set in, I had far too much to do. I had to party, live it up in university, head-bang on dance floors until three in the morning, have overly dramatic relationships… meanwhile, libraries were evolving and I had no idea.
Did you know that a library card is absolutely free? I sure didn’t! Not only that, but once you have said card, borrowing things from a library is also free. Seriously. Mind-blowing, right?! Apparently this has been going on forever. Last year Cathy (best adventurer and longtime library attendee) invited me to get my very first library card and it still resides right here in my wallet. I chose a purple one. I think it’s rather nice. Along with it, I found out that public libraries all over Edmonton lend all sorts of resources rather than just books. Movies, magazines, video games …even educational courses, like a post secondary institution but small-scale. Edmonton’s downtown branch, the Stanley A. Milner, actually has a maker space where you can 3D print things, record music and make clothing. That’s not stuff that I ever expected to see in a library of all places. Future facilities are planned to include book binding, CNC machining, video production and robotics. Alright, now I’m interested.
Library’s come a long way from rows of musty shelves and posters of grinning celebrities I don’t care about with the word READ emblazoned on them, I’ll tell you that much.
Know what else the Milner has? A damn instructional kitchen! I’m no foodie but that impresses even me. The degree of hands-on interactivity the library now incorporates would make even my despondent, no-attention-span child self curious.
If you have the time, Edmonton Public Library is hosting an open house at Milner this Saturday (September 24, 2022) to invite people into that kitchen and gather requests for future EPL classes. If you don’t have time (or you’re reading this old-ass article in the future) then the classes, the maker space, the gamer space, the kitchen, the skills workshops and the constant in-house programming for both children and adults will still be there to stay.
I also hear EPL offers career development services like advice counselling, resume building and digital courses for gaining the skills to move in new job directions. I still feel like I’m missing that particular direction itself but it’s a pleasant surprise to find out your nice purple library card offers you one more option.
My geekdom now includes new respect for public libraries. It was a long time coming but like so much else in my life, I had to get a lot of internal interference out of the way first. If you just have no interest in something, no awareness campaign or advertisement is going to reach you. Perhaps you haven’t seen it in the necessary light that speaks to you yet, or perhaps your mind is still buzzing with anxieties and other blockages that inhibit you from hearing much of anything. Sometimes the only thing that will clear the way to appreciating the things you never could before is time – the frustrating, groping search for self awareness.
Hey, it took the better part of twenty years just to find a reason to read. Then it took another twenty more to find out libraries are free. But I’m not complaining now that these things are here. Hopefully it doesn’t take that long to jump into some of these cool services.
I wonder if they still use the grinning celebrities.
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Explore EPL Open House: Discover, Share, and Learn in The Kitchen
https://epl.bibliocommons.com/events/6323413739ecb58ba70bab73
Edmonton Public Library:
There's No Going Back 