The Goucher College library in Towson, Md., in 1953. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)
By Alexandra Petri, The Washington Post, August 7, 2023
This was not always a place of punishment. People used to come here on purpose. Students, like yourself. Back then, it was called a library.
These things on the shelves gathering dust were once prized. Sometimes, they were arranged by a special code called Dewey Decimal. They were passed excitedly from hand to hand, and we were proud that a place where you could go and receive a book existed. These shelves hold books that speak of the destruction of libraries as a tragedy. (Once, there was a place called Alexandria, and we still regret its loss centuries later. That was before we knew better.)
There was a time when people came here on purpose: to read, to get recommendations of what to read next, to walk through the rows of bookcases and stare greedy-eyed at all the books they hadn’t read yet. (Books are the things on the shelves in the plastic sleeves.)
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