Who doesn’t remember taking trips to their local library as a child (or anyone been more recently as an adult?). The smell of old books, searching through record cards and microfiche (ok, so anyone under the age of 25 is unlikely to have even heard of those..), that ‘dajchunk’ sound of the librarian stamping the return date on your books.
I was reading an article the other day that brought these memories back - the European Union launched a new digital library, giving users access to 2 million ‘digital objects. Turns out that the site was so popular that within hours of it launching, it came to a grinding halt. Shame really.
However, while I’m looking forward to it being back online sometime in December, part of me does think that this ‘information at your fingertips’ won’t quite evoke the same emotions as a visit to a real library. Anyway if you do fancy strolling through the aisles of some ageing books, here are some of my favourites:
British Library Reading Room
