The first library I remember was a single room in a converted house on the edge of the town where I grew up. The carpet was worn in a path between the front desk and the children's section. The children's section smelled like a specific combination of old paper and carpet cleaner that I associate with safety.

I've been thinking about this because I read a piece recently about library closures and tried to calculate how many books I've borrowed over thirty years versus purchased. The borrowing count is almost certainly in the thousands. The purchase count, if I'm honest, is probably around four hundred.

What libraries gave me was access that my family couldn't have provided otherwise. Not because we were poor — we weren't — but because no family can anticipate a child's entire range of interest. The library had everything. That abundance was formative.