Remember When ~ My Childhood Library

This being the month when the first US public library was opened in 1833, and with a tap on the shoulder from the EtsyBloggers team, I have been thinking about my childhood public library which was established in 1939. It was located in the Downtown (always capitalized, you know!) area in my hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (And, no, I was NOT one of its first visitors!!)

Main entrance -- looked mammoth to me!

As I remember it, it was a vast expanse of books, card catalogs and librarians shushing me! But I got a good start on reading there and am now never without a book.

There was a special children's area where I would spend my time -- it was located downstairs which was not really a basement, and not really on the ground level. Somewhere in between.....

See the window? We were in the 'neither here nor there' region of the library! Really looks cozy, huh?

Do you remember the old card catalogs using the Dewey Decimal System? I pity the librarians who had to type up all those little cards with all those strings of numbers and letters!

And we checked out by writing our names on cards, one of which would go in the book, and the other for the library records. And I think my library card was orange!

Inside, with the librarian's counter to the left, Mr. Dewey Decimal to the right, and the spooky upstairs...

There were also these poles with newspapers draped over them and huge gigantic albums of various articles.
(So pre-internet!) 

Upstairs.....spooky..... 

I wasn't allowed up here until I was probably Jr High or so!

The architecture on this building was magnificent. 

Quite a change from today's!

This library memory is part of the EtsyBloggers Blog Carnival which is being hosted by Storybeader. One of the topics to choose from was to post about fond memories of your public library and reading. I immediately stepped back in time to my childhood library. 

Now, when I take Noli (age 5) to the library, it is such a vast difference in atmosphere and design. She has computers to play on and, when she's older, to do research on; comfy seating; games and stuffed animals to play with -- and nobody's shushing her!!

♥♥