Library Lovers Month

Well folks, it's Library Lovers Month, and other than mentioning it in passing, three weeks ago, I have done nothing about it. So, here is what you can do to celebrate libraries for the next six days.

Memorize and Recite: "The Library" by John Greenleaf Whittier

(sung at the opening of the Haverhill Public Library)

"Let There be Light!" God spake of old,
And over chaos dark and cold,
And through the dead and formless frame
Of nature, life and order came.

Faint was the light at first that shone
On giant fern and mastadon,
On half-formed plant and beast of prey
And man as rude and wild as they.

Age after age, like wave, o'erran
The earth, uplifting brute and man;
And mind, at length, in symbols dark
It's meaning traced on stone and bark.

On leaf of palm, on sedge-wrought roll,
On plastic clay and leathern scroll,
Man wrote his thoughts; the ages passed,
And lo! The Press was found at last!

Then dead souls woke; the thoughts of men
Whose bones were dust revived again;
The cloister's silence found a tongue,
Old prophets spake, old poets sung.

And here, to-day, the dead look down
The kings of mind again we crown;
We hear the voices lost so long,
The sage's word, the sibyl's song.

Here Greek and Roman find themselves
Alive along these crowded shelves;
And Shakespeare treads again his stage,
And Chaucer paints anew his age.

As if some Pantheon's marbles broke
Their story trance, and lived and spoke
Life thrills along the alcoved hall.
The lords of thought await our call!

Watch movies with librarians: Actors and Actresses who have portrayed librarians

Print a bookmark: Do's and Don'ts for Library Lovers Bookmarks

Take a child to the library: Library Lovers' Things To Do With Kids (This one weirds me out, the title, I mean. And, I just didn't think you could do things like frost cookies, and eat Alpha-bits at a library.)

Start planning your estate, so you can remember your library in your estate:How to Love Your Library

Or, I guess, you could just go hang out at your local library: Library Search