Pigging out at the Curriculum Theory Candy Shop- on libraries and books

Libraries are dangerous places because they contain books.  Books are dangerous because they beg you to take them home.

When my husband was a teenager, he stole an encyclopedia from a stall at a street market. When he told me this story, I gave him the stink eye and said “I can’t believe you STOLE something!” “I didn’t steal anything,” he countered. “You can’t steal knowledge. It just doesn’t qualify as something you can steal.” I couldn’t really argue with that logic, even if it was that of a teenage boy.

When my husband and I go travelling we write a travel contract. There is an item about books. It states the number of books that each travel participant is allowed to bring on the trip and how many each participant is allowed to purchase while travelling. More than anything, this is a safety measure to ensure that we don’t purchase more books than we can carry or so that our baggage weight allowance is not over the limit. We have to limit books because if we didn’t, the overwhelming desire to buy books would blow the trip budget. We are also running out of places to put the books at home.

Going to the library is very much like going to the grocery store. Whenever I feel a bout of impulse buying coming on, I quickly “get thee to a library. To the library go, and quickly too.” I browse the stacks like a shopper browsing the aisles. I put unnecessary purchases in the cart, except with books, there is no such thing as an unnecessary purchase. I always leave the library with a stack of unplanned reads. Yes, I have tried the old shopping trick of “don’t go to the store without a shopping list.” I go to the library with a list but I can never stick to it. There are too many tempting reads calling out to me from the shelves. I can’t stop myself from shelf reading and pulling at least half a dozen interesting titles off the shelf. I have also tried the other trick of not shopping while hungry- because if you do you will always buy more than you planned. Well, it is near impossible to go to a library when I am not hungry for books because I have a voracious literary appetite. Books are part of the culture of our house. Friday nights often find my husband and I nerding-out on the couch- each of us with a book, or several. That, or playing Bananagrams.

Sigh. Yesterday’s trip to the library was no different. I needed to go to the local Library of Higher Learning to get some books for the curriculum theory class that I am taking. The public library didn’t have what I needed. I prepared a list before leaving the house. “This time I’ll stick to the list” I told myself. “No impulse titles.” There were 5 titles on the list. Two I had actually placed holds on “JUST IN CASE ANYONE TRIES TO GET THEM BEFORE ME!!!” I have visions of library lurkers lurking in the stacks, pulling books that they psychically know someone really wants/needs. (Want and need are synonyms when it comes to books) I took one of my largest reusable shopping bags with me because I knew that a backpack wouldn’t suffice.

 I have heard that some global hotel chains build all of their hotels with the same floor plan so that travelling business people aren’t disoriented when they arrive. It makes for a “more pleasant stay and they feel at home.” When I entered the Library of Higher Learning, I immediately felt at home and knew that I was in for a pleasant stay. “It smells like undergrad!” I thought. “Same smell, different institution. Le siiiiigh. Eau de vieille biblioteque.” It made my mind race and my stomach do excited flip flops.

“Stick to the list!” echoed in my mind as a tromped up the stairs. “Stick to the list!”

“Stick to the list!” my steps reminded me as I wandered the stacks looking for the right call numbers. “Stick to the list!”

“Stick to the list!” nagged at me as my fingers stroked the spines. “Stick to the list!”

“Oooook. I am looking for call number LB 880 S662 C87. ‘Curriculum, pedagogy and educational research…… Aaaah. Here it is…WHAT’STHIS? THE PAOLO FREIRE ENCYCLOPEDIA?!?!?! Get in the bag. GETINTHEBAG!” The “stick to the list” mantra quickly dissolved as I found title after title that I HAD TO HAVE! “Indoctrination in Education.” In the bag. “Jacques Rancière: Education, Truth, Emancipation.” In the bag. “Rediscovering the Spirit of Education After Scientific Management.” In the bag. “Teaching Against the Grain.” In the bag.

“Is this a book which I see before me, the spine toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee!”

I had entered the Curriculum Theory Candy Shop and there was no going back. I was pigging out. My giant reusable shopping bag was soon overflowing with books not on the list. “Oh well,” I sighed. “You can never have too many.”

As I dragged myself out of the library with great reluctance, I heard Macbeth say with approval,
“My more-having would be as a sauce, to make me hunger more.”