Introduction

Libraries...when I first think of the word library, I think of the public libraries I grew up going to. It's funny, one of the neatest things my mother did for me growing up was make going to the library a fun and exciting adventure for me. My mother did not believe in (and still does not believe in) buying books. She loved to read them though, so the library became at the least a weekly trip for us. Because she developed a love of reading in me at an early age, she took the trips to the library as an opportunity to make something fun happen. When I was really little, we would go through the children's section and starting with A, we would pick a new book each trip. I do not know how many times we made it through the alphabet, but I do know that it was always something I looked forward to.
As I got older, I actually remember my mom getting annoyed at me at times because I wanted to go to the library too often. I devoured books like crazy, and the library and my mom could not keep up with me. Any trips to a mall and a bookstore resulted in me throwing all my money into buying books that I could not get in the library. For some reason the school media center was not a resource for me. Perhaps they did not carry the books I wanted or we did not have a lot of access to them. I cannot recall ever checking out a book from the school library.
My love of libraries went downhill though, as I went off to college. Now libraries were not for getting the newest novel, but for research. I went to the University of Illinois, and while the library was touted for being one of the best, I hated it. It was too big, I had no idea how to use it, and it was not even a nice place to study. I quickly found as many ways of not using the library as possible. I think if they had actually given us a tour and taught us how to use the library at some point, I would have gotten a lot more out of it. Even today, as I go back to my college studies, I avoid the college library as much as I can, using the internet and public library instead.
Now as I begin my library studies, I see that there are many types of libraries with many different issues involved in each. I will attempt to look at these different kinds of libraries and learn what I can. My goal is to become a media specialist and so my blog will most likely focus more in that area than in others. I have strong opinions about how a media center should be used in a school and what the role of a media specialist should be.
This is my first time blogging, so hopefully I will figure this all out!