library

I love that our small town has a library. Back in the day when we were living in a city and we were a "dual income" family we spent REDONKULOUS amounts of money on books. We spent hours upon hours in bookstores and never walked out of a store without armloads of books. We were members of book clubs and ordered books through those and we visited used and independent books stores with regularity.
When we moved to Canada and to our small community we found (much to our chagrin) that there is no bookstore in our town and only one bookstore in the city that is closest to us. This has curtailed our book shopping completely, but our desire to read has not been similarly stifled. THANK GOODNESS for our small town library. It was one of the very first things I sought out when we moved here and I got a membership immediately. They have an awesome online service where you can get online from home or work and search for books and place orders for books. Because we are in such a small community our library has partnered with others and there is a consortium of libraries who all share resources and books. They ship books between one another when you order online and there is no charge (beyond a very reasonable yearly membership) for this ordering service.
I have been ordering STACKS of books lately - and by stacks I mean probably ten books or more per week. Every time I go to pick up books that have been sent from other small libraries I try to go through the shelves and pick up books from here also.
Here's the thing. Our library is so small they have put the shelves very close to one another in order to accommodate the books they have. So close together in fact that they are like one way streets - you can't pass someone in the aisle if you are in the same aisle trying to pass them. More frustrating than that is the fact that the shelves are so close that it is impossible to see what is on anything on a shelf below eyesight. It is impossible to bend forward to see what is on the low shelves. You can turn sideways and bend down but then you have to turn your head at a weird angle to see the book spines.
If I ever win the lottery this little library in our town will be the happiest little library this side of the Great Lakes - and I will be able to check out books from shelves lower than shoulder height!