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AN UPBEAT STORY
Published On 09-29-2008 , 12:39 AM
WANT an upbeat story? Check out your neighborhood public library and there's a plenty. While I suspect I'm known for continually shining light on the nonsense that prevails in our society, libraries are sacred ground for me.
As an elementary school student, living in Los Angeles at 1206 W. 36th St., our neighborhood library, not far from the USC campus, was a weekly walk-to place for my sister and I.
But in those days, just about every thing in my neighborhood was a walk-to place including all the museums in Exposition Park.
Nowadays, life isn't just around the corner anymore. However, one cultural icon is still only a few feet away. Neighborhood libraries, it's exciting to observe, have maintained their presence in the community and are still referred to as branches.
The use of the word feet is not meant to be just the measurement of distance here, but also the mode of transportation when we walk or see to it that our children practice this important activity to take them where they need to go.
Every week as a young boy, Stuart Feigin walked to the small West Hollywood public library that wasn't too terribly far from his home.
One book he checked out made a lasting imprint on his life. While he says there weren't many books, one of them was "How to Program an IBM 1401," and he read it cover to cover.
Feigin, now 61, a successful software designer who credits the book with getting him started, is donating $1 million to the West Hollywood Library Fund toward the group's effort to raise money for a new library to replace the little one he used to walk to and for the development and construction of a community center.
Feigin has held major positions in the technology field. He is said to have an "unending" interest and career in technology and electronics. He is chairman of the board of Oracle, a multi-million dollar corporation.
All because he walked to the library? All because he read "How to Program an IBM 1401" from cover to cover?
Not all because. But the book got him started.
When's the last time your kid spent a few hours in your neighborhood public library? That walk you've been planning can be to a neighborhood cultural icon for the entire family.
Don't know where the closest library is? But you do remember driving past a few gothic-styled structures? Fear not! Call your central library and get the lowdown. Tell 'em where you live and they'll tell you the closest branch. Go online and Google the name of your city and the word library.
Just blocks from your own home, you just may help to launch your kid's career. Think now of the money squeeze and know you won't have to buy goodies at the snack bar, like at the movie theater, because there is no eating or drinking allowed in this place of books.
Also, you will not have to buy an admission ticket, because the place of books is free.
Times haven't changed so much as we have. There are still cultural icons just a few feet away, but it seems we'd rather get in our cars passing by the good stuff to get to the places costing more than our average households can afford.
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This blog also appears in the columns section where it can be printed and/or emailed to a friend.
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Comment
| | 1. | its a nice blog. and it is very informative..
- by rapidshare, 07-28-2010, 6:09 AM
| | 2. | It's great that you write such articles about books and libraries... Nowadays the youth read very little and such good post in favor of books will be of good avail for all od us, I am sure! Thanks from a mom of two teenagers! ;%29
- by rapidpedia, 04-12-2010, 1:18 AM
| | 3. | Great article. I am a big library fan. When I taught 5th grade, I was lucky enough to have my classroom in the school library, because there weren't enough classrooms. My students really learned how to use the library. Now I see that there are many library programs for students of all ages and I hope they make the most use out of them.
- by Sue, 10-01-2008, 1:25 PM
| | 4. | Of course, I am in total agreement. Beyond walking or getting to said library in any fashion possible, it is imperative one learn how to utilize the resources of the library once inside the fascinating structure. Make sure to get a library card!!
- by phxsays, 09-29-2008, 6:55 AM
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