The library is not for losers

MANILA, Philippines - Libraries are amazing places. Maybe not so much when you’re stuck in an elite all-girls Catholic school where priorities are misconstrued and social stigmas are based on Hollywood movies. In which case, a library is a venue for questionable activity. Like anyone who spends time there for fun, and not for work, is peculiar or has an agenda. Because why would you seclude yourself to a silent, languorous room full of books, where conversation is kept at minimal decibel levels?

But I love libraries. I love everything about them. The smell of the old pages of the books, the enveloping silence, the system of borrowing and returning which restores a kind of faith in humanity. And why not — I even miss the bitchy librarians. I love the idea that you can get a glimpse into a person’s soul via the list of books enumerated in their library card. You can get an insight into who they are when they’re not social beings. Of the things that they think when they’re alone, or the places they dream of going. You can get to know that part of them that stays up till 4 a.m. staring at the ceiling. The abstract “them,” floating in space, sketched roughly in a list of books on a 4x3-inch piece of cardboard.

I loved looking at the list of the names of the borrowers on the back of each book. Who held this book before me? Why did she check it out? What did she think of it? If I found the same name in more than three books of which I also borrowed myself, I would imagine who the person was, and try to paint her portrait in my head. Did she look like me? Did she wear boots to school, or prim mary janes? How did she wear her hair? I wonder if we could be friends.

I remember the most popular book in the entire school at that time was the annual Guinness Book of Records. There was only one copy, and everyone would clamor to get first dibs. To secure that it was ours, me and my friends would hide the large hardbound book in inconspicuous places. This meant shoving it in the back, behind the rows of Britannica Encyclopedias. Or, if you were creative, in the Botany section.

Also at that time, courtroom drama was a big thing with Ally McBeal. The library became the venue of our own make-believe law cases. There was someone who played a judge, a few who played victims, and two lawyers for the two sides. I played a kookie lawyer and my friends joked that my monologues were so convoluted they would keep reminding me to “get to the point.” My prop was an orange law book. I don’t remember what it was called.

I remember all the stories I would read. Before the wave of bad fantasy novels and the popularity of pathetic and weak female leads, there was the magic of young adult fiction. No forbidden love stories of vampires, fallen angels, or soft-porn erotica with Mr. Grey. I devoured our library’s entire Roald Dahl collection, and scoured for books with the golden seal of a letter P, the prestigious Michael J. Printz award for the best young adult literature. I fell in love with books like Jerry Spinelli’s Stargirl (hello the-original-manic-pixie-dream-girl), and E.L Konisburg’s From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweilier (which looks like it inspired a scene in Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums).

I only lost one library book my whole life. Henny Penny. I paid for it with my allowance, and then found it again somewhere in the house later on. I will never forget the story of Henny Penny, it cost me  more than P200. The sky was not falling, you crazy bird.

I wonder what the experience of libraries will be like for kids today. I’m not sure that flipping through e-books feels the same as turning the delicate pages of a book that has been held and loved by many others before you. I don’t think the electronic borrowing system of libraries today is the same as the feeling of keeping a library card, and then the librarian stamping a due date beside it. I don’t think searching for titles in Google is as satisfying as running your fingers down the spines of books on the shelves, reading the blurbs on the back, admiring the cover artwork, and making the careful decision of picking it up and taking it home. I don’t know what the magic of today’s library system is. But I am glad to have grown up at the time where it still had romance. That kind of experience cannot be recreated. In many ways, it’s more exciting than a cafeteria.