Sunday, August 8, 2021

Old School Book Borrowing in the Rockies

 I read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd not on my Kindle iPad app, as I had the previous two Christie novels, but in a trade paperback version that I had checked out from the camp library. 

I had been coming here for years without being aware that the camp even had a library. It's in a quaint little two story building behind the main lodge. I had gone there a couple days specifically looking for Christie novels, and specifically for the very one that I checked out. 

The library is wonderful. Inside the screen door is a section on Colorado, including a whole shelf that is not surprisingly dedicated to works connected to Isabella Bird. In fact I wound up checking out a book about Bird which I am planning to read in the time remaining here, as years ago I had read her famous memoir about Estes Park on the recommendation of a friend, who gave me a copy.

The best part of the library experience was checking the books. The volunteer woman behind the counter apologized that they didn't have a computerized system. Instead they used the old style card-in-pocket that those of us above a certain age remember as being the method by which books were checked out. The volunteer wrote the date of my checkout from the camp on the white slip that tells that due date, and which remains in the pocket of the book. Of course they have an old style card catalog too.

When the woman made her apology to me for this old procedure, I told her "I hope it never changes."

It was refreshing to read a novel in an actual paper version. I loved sitting on the porch of our cabin with my coffee cup, feeling the paper in my hands. Moreover, I knew I was getting the real deal which included the diagrams that Christie included in the original edition, but which are often missing from Kindle versions.


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