Over the weekend, Chris and I finally made it to the public library here in Tübingen. We’d been meaning to go and get library cards for a while, but on the weekends, the library in Tübingen is only open on Saturday mornings, and we never timed it right.  But this past Saturday we finally made  it in time.  So, now we can check out books, audio CDs, DVDs, and whatever else they have in the library.

Which is fun. I have always loved going to the library, ever since I was a little girl who loved to read. What was remarkable about the library here was that it wasn’t actually all that remarkable compared to a North America library. There are open stacks, so you wander around and browse the shelves, pluck things you want off the shelves yourself, and then process your books at the self-service checkout kiosks. That’s pretty much how I think a North American library would work nowadays  –  at least, that’s how I remember it working a few ago, the last time I went to one in North America.

However,  that was not at all how the library in Bolzano worked. The one and only time we went to the library there, we discovered that it was a closed-stack system. No wandering among the bookshelves scanning for interesting sounding titles. Rather, you had to know what you wanted and then fill out a form: the librarian would then go find the book in the stacks and bring it out to you.  Definitely not a system that was easy for a language-learner to use, particularly one who just wanted to find a kids book or two, or maybe a DVD or two, for language practice.

So, the library wasn’t really a place for us in Bolzano. However, on Saturday we wandered to our hearts content in the large children’s area, where the books are arranged by reading ability/age group. I’m currently selecting books for the 6-9 years age range. I’m hoping I’m advanced enough in my German reading ability to be able to keep pace with a 6-year-old reader.

If not, I may have to drop down to the picture books for the younger ages, I guess. Although I have such a hard time in my German class interpreting the pictures that are in that book, I’m not sure getting picture books would help me. In class, I never understand what, for example, a guy on the right in the drawing is supposed be doing with a pair of pants he’s holding.  Does he want to buy them himself? Does he think they would look good on the other guy shown in the drawing? Maybe he thinks they’d look bad on him? Or is he saying how ugly they are in general?

Seriously, I can construct a thousand little stories for that drawing, and not a single one will wind up matching the one that the book designer had in mind, which means that the grammar point that I’m supposed to connect with it doesn’t work, and I wind up getting the answer totally wrong.  Argh.  At least there is one other person in my class who has the same problem … he and I can understand each other, even if neither of us know why those two guys are discussing those pants.

But I digress.

The point is that if I can actually read at a 6-year-old level, I’ll be able to get books with more words than drawings. And I probably will understand them better, if  a guy  actually says what he’s doing with those pants in the book. The magic of words … and books.

A trip to the library has made a new girl of me. 
For suddenly I can see, the magic of books!
— lyrics by Sheldon Harnick

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The lyric quoted above is from the song A Trip to the Library from the musical She Loves Me. Not surprisingly, the song tells the story of what  happens to a woman when she goes to the library. I find it a really cute little story song that includes several clever plays on words in rest of the lyrics.  Mind you, most of the lyrics themselves don’t really fit with what happened to me on Saturday. For example, unlike the woman in the song, I’ve known about the magic of books since I was a child, whereas she discovers it on her trip to the library. Also, I actually went to the library with a ” dear, sweet, clearly respectable, slightly bespectacled man,” I didn’t meet him there for the first time.

But that song has been running through my head since we first decided to head to the library. And the title of the song most definitely applies to Saturday’s adventure. So, FWIW, here’s a link to a recording of from a Broadway revival several years ago.

BTW, I don’t set out to have experiences that will match titles of crazy Broadway show tunes … it just somehow always works out that way, I guess. 😉