Smithsonian Institution, of which I am a national member, has a program called “Adopt-a-library” to which I have been contributing for several years now, and today I mailed in a check to “re-adopt” two libraries for the coming year. The program provides the libraries with subscriptions to NATURAL HISTORY magazine for a full year. It doesn’t cost very much money ($18 per library) and it really helps libraries, whose funds are always being cut these days.
For the past three or four years now, I’ve adopted to the two libraries that had the greatest impact on me:
1. The Franklin Township Library in Somerset, New Jersey. This is the first public library I ever attended and it was this library that introduced me to science and astronomy through a book called The Nine Planets by Franklyn Mansfield Branley. I checked this book out of the library repeatedly and read it until I had the book memorized. It is because of this book that I learned to love science, astronomy and science fiction and for that I am forever grateful. Imagine if that library were not there when I was 6 or 7 years old!
2. The Granada Hills Public Library in Granada Hills, California. This was the first library for which I had a library card of my very own. I spent a lot of time in this library, checking out books, and reading books. I loved it. I would go there, and check out books, and then read them while I walked home (about a mile). I was free to roam about the library and no one was telling me what I could and could not read, and so I sampled a bit of everything that attracted my twelve-year-old attention. (Yes, including that famous book Girls and Sex which I read with fascination over a period of several Saturdays in a cubicle at the library because I was too afraid to bring it up to the front desk to check it out.
There are lots of great library programs out there. Support them if you can!
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