Saturday, August 21, 2010

Carl Nolte: "Print is not dead -- libraries booming".


Link to Carl Nolte's 'Native Son' column in the August 15 San Francisco Chronicle.

Excerpt: I thought I'd pay a nostalgic visit to the Mission branch of the public library on 24th Street, near Mission. My little brother and I used to go up there on summer afternoons and check out adventure books by Rafael Sabatini ("Captain Blood" was a favorite) or by P.C. Wren, who wrote about brave Englishmen who joined the French Foreign Legion.

I went by on Wednesday afternoon. I expected a mostly empty place, quiet, with dust motes in the air and the familiar library smell of print. The joint was packed, hardly a seat to be had in the second-floor reading room.

Downstairs were shelves full of reserved books and CDs, ready for pickup by folks. Their names were wrapped around the reserved books: Navarro, Ko, Velez, Van Duzen, Huang and Kelly, the full mosaic of people who live in the Mission these days
.

Oops! Well, at least Carl used last names only. Let's hope Mission's library materials on the hold shelves are well wrapped.

Carl otherwise delivers a great library message.

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