How the Library Changed My Life

Marjorie Taylor

Phoenix, AZ

I think I first recall being at the library in Erie, Pennsylvania when I was around 5 years old. My mother would take us to a huge stone building, up the steps and through the gigantic columns into my favorite world. Shelves and shelves of books, colors and letters and pictures everywhere, I was in heaven. Even though I was still learning to read I loved the place, it was the doorway into my own alternate universe. I discovered Ancient Greece, Nancy Drew, Leon Uris, Winnie the Pooh, Pablo Picasso, August Rodin, and a host of other amazing places and people and work at the library.

As I grew older and moved to other towns and larger cities I discovered even larger libraries. At Penn State the libraries were wonderful. Every discipline had its own building on the main campus, and you could wander through the stacks for years and never come out. Over the years, the libraries in New York and Oregon, California and Louisiana, Arizona and Arkansas, have been my havens, my advisors, my friends in time of need.

The library is the first place I go when I need to find in depth information, when I need to find truth, when I need a new recipe for chicken or the way to control slugs in my garden without poison. The library is where I go for entertainment, for advice, for balance and perspective. It has been my best friend at times, my shelter at others and my lawyer and accountant and business partner at still others. It has shown me works of art I would never have seen, lifted my spirit and broadened my perspective.

When I saw the topic of this essay my first thought was – changed my life? The library has been such an integral part of my life I cannot think of what my life would have been like without it. Changed it? Certainly. Definitely. Without the library I would have had a much different life, and it is one I do not want to even imagine.