A.A., Haverford

Many years ago before the war, when I was nine, my family moved to Wynnewood. My mother took me to Ludington – a small square, stone building, managed alone as best as I could tell, by a formidable well-built woman with her straight grey hair pulled back in a bun. She perched on a stool. She never smiled yet she didn’t really frown, she just looked implacable and aloof.

I would push my books up on the counter and she would remove the card from the backs, pick up another dog-eared card loaded with old dates, bang a metal rotating date stamp into a purple ink pad and stamp the cards for my books. She helped located books, she answered the phone and answered questions but she never looked hurried.

Through the years I have watched Ludington expand but it didn’t destroy that first building, it just wrapped around it and encased it like a Mayan pyramid. And Ludington worked harder – added books on tape and masses of DVDs. Tutors appeared helping wiggly students at small tables.

Now I can reserve my books by phone or on my computer and I can check if a DVD is available before I leave my home. The librarians are younger. Once I counted four at a time checking out books electronically. They smile too.

Books have moved about; fiction has seemed particularly restless. Nonfiction out ran it. Not fiction fits into that original stone building. If you look closely, you will see an original stone wall there where my first librarian presided.