I Used to Know This Place

 I used to know this place.  I sit down in an unfamiliar chair at an unfamiliar table.  The table set is one of many.  They look efficient and modern, with angles and edges everywhere.  How nice, i think.  It isn't until I start reading a book that I realize how unsuited they are for reading. You see, I like to hold onto the book I'm reading when sitting at a table or desk.  This means my arms lie on the table and its edges, but as soon as I do that, the edges cut into my forearms.  These are not reading tables.  They are sharp, knife-like and unsanded, unfit for reading.  There should be signs warning patrons not to touch edges or angles.  WARNING!!  TABLES ARE NOT FOR READING.  To prevent lacerations and unnecessary bleeding, keep arms and elbows a safe distance from edges and angles.    

I'm at the local public library, a place I used to frequent often but last set foot in at the beginning of the Covid pandemic.  The choice was not mine but the library's.  They -- the powers that be -- shut the physical library down to patrons turning its focus to ebooks and checking out books online.  If a patron wanted to read a physical book, he or she placed a hold on the book on the library's website, and the library notified him or her when it was ready for pickup.  Patrons did not enter the library to pickup books they placed on hold.  No, they drove to the library, parked in one of the assigned parking spaces, texted the library with their name and library card number, and waited for a librarian to come outside and place their books on a table in front of the parking space.  When the librarian left, they could exit their car and retrieve their books.  This is still done.

Now the library has reopened, but I no longer recognize it.  People are still leery of covid, or are they?  Before there was Covid, the library was packed with people, and there were to few tables and chairs to go around.   But the tables and chairs it did have were comfortable.  Now the library has uncomfortable tables and chairs, lots of them, but no patrons to sit at them.  Is it the fear of Covid or the fear of slicing one's forearms and elbows that keeps patrons away? 

And tht isn't the only thing that's different.  

The library used to be filled to overflowing with books, especially nonfiction books.  Now the shelves are empty and lonely.  They beckon for company.  Any book will do.  Just, please, sit on the shelf for a while and make the shelf happy.  Perhaps this has to do with turning the library's focus towards ebooks.  Maybe that's where the money goes?  I don't know.   But what happened to all the books they used to have?  Did they sell them?  Give them away?  Why would they disappear?  A mystery.

Here's another mystery.  Last time I was here, the nonfiction section had all kinds of hard science, history, biography, and current events books on display.  Now the display cases are filled with books on race, self-help, therapy, and LGTBQ books.  Hard science and history is not to be found.  The emphasis has completely changed, and I'm left wondering why it's one and not the other instead of both.

And then there are the magazines and newspapers.  We used to have a wide selection of magazines and newspapers from all over the world.  Now there are only empty slots where magazines and newspapers once lay.  

If the library was a business, I would be thinking it's financially unsound and will be filing for bankruptcy any day now. -- sort of like Bed, Bath, and Beyond, if you have been in one lately.  But the library is funded by us taxpayers, and it should be one of the last institutions left standing.  Even in a dystopian future, there should be libraries.  Right?  Change is swift, and I thought I had become accustomed to quick change, but I don't know if I can adapt to this.  This is too much.  Time to hang up my reading glasses and go on a hike in the country with my brand new digital camera that lets me email photos to friends as soon as I snap the shots.