As a child growing up in Seattle I was always fascinated by the downtown library on Fourth Avenue. Even though I did not check anything out, I enjoyed wandering through and just looking at all of the books on the shelves.
A few years later, when I was around 12, we were in Washington, D.C. and I went to visit the Library of Congress. I was too young to get in, so I walked around the building and there was an open door with a guard standing outside talking to his girl friend. I quickly entered the door and there I was inside the Library off Congress, except I was in some sort of back room. I looked around and found a stairway and upon climbing it I was on a balcony 30 feet above the main floor. Somehow I climbed a fence and finally got to the main floor. I was able to wander around for about 10 minutes before a guard saw this little kid and threw me out.
Throughout the years I have used many libraries and for the past 25 years that I have lived in Arlington I have visited our library on a weekly basis. In these past 25 years our library has served us well; however it is at the point where it has become too small to serve our growing population. Quite often, I will visit the library and it is so crowded with people using laptop computers to search the Internet that it is difficult to pass behind them to search the book shelves. Although I love our library, I can hardly wait until it becomes a Community Center and I can visit the new library across the street. I most certainly will vote for a new library and hope you will also.
Tom Monroe
Arlington