Hollister's first public library in the early 1900s, with Olive Evans Hawkins (the city's first librarian) standing on the porch.
Visit the elegantly designed Morgan Hill Public Library sometime and you'll see that, even in the Internet age, good quality public libraries are a vital component of a community. They provide the knowledge resources that make it possible for everyone to improve themselves and the quality of their lives.
This weekend, the mushroom metropolis will celebrate the 1-year grand opening of its popular library. It's a great opportunity to rediscover that, whether you're looking for entertainment, education or enlightenment, public libraries have something for everyone.
That point hit me back in April when I drove down to Hollister to meet a friend who was coming up from Southern California for the weekend. I'd arrived in the city half an hour too early, so I decided to roam around Hollister's historic downtown area and check out the changes to the community I grew up in. Somehow, my wandering took me to the San Benito County Free Library on Fifth Street. It had been probably 20 years since I'd last been there. The second I stepped through the doors and found myself inside, a blaze of long-forgotten memories hit.
Walking through the library, I was amazed that the floor plan somehow seemed a lot smaller. It's funny how places from your childhood years always seem to have shrunk when you visit them again as adults. Although some of the furniture was arranged differently - most notably the librarian desk was in a different spot - the adult and the children shelves were still in the same location.
As I strolled through the children's section, I recalled how when I was a youngster my dad and mom took me every couple of weeks to the library. We lived in a house located a 10 minute walk away, and we'd stroll there hand-in-hand and I'd load up a pile of story books - Curious George, Dr. Seuss and many of the beginning readers.
I checked them out with a little yellow cardboard card that I still have in a box of childhood memorabilia. Back then, libraries didn't have fancy computerized self-checkout machines. You had to go to the nice librarian at the front desk and she'd take the check-out card from out of a small yellow envelope pasted on the inside of the book's front cover. She'd pencil in your library card number on it and then she would stamp the due date on a line of the cover envelope.
As I got a little older, my parents gave me permission to hike to the library by myself. That's when I started checking out books such as the Oz and Narnia stories and Jules Verne's journeys. I'd take them back to my tree-house and spend the afternoon caught up in the book-bound adventures.
As I walked through the San Benito County Public library back in April, I recalled the day I as a child first ventured into the "adult book section." In my kid's mind, I thought "adult books" must be somehow like "adult magazines" such as Playboy or Penthouse - something I would get in big trouble for if I dared open them because they held something forbidden for kids.
I remembered cautiously walking - almost creeping really - past the lady librarian at the front desk as I headed that first time to that seemingly prohibited zone. Much to my surprise, she didn't freak-out as I got closer to the adult shelves. I hesitated, then snuck down one of the adult section aisles and saw the books here seemed a whole lot more complex than the ones I'd known back in the kid's section. There were novels here, but they seemed a lot thicker. I picked up something called "War and Peace" and was shocked to see how small the words were and how many thin pages it contained - more than a thousand. I imagined it would take years of continuous nonstop reading - 24 hours a day, seven days a week - to finish something so massive. Worst of all, it had no pictures.
After my short 10 minute tour of the Fifth Street library back in April, I headed for the front doors to leave just as a couple of boys about 7 or 8 years old came in. I could see the excitement in their eyes at the prospect of finding stories among the shelves. Marvelous book-bound adventures awaited them, just as they had awaited me once long ago when I was their age.
If you have young kids, I suggest that you share the magic of libraries with them. This Saturday marks the first anniversary of Morgan Hill's public library on 660 West Main Ave. The Friends of the Morgan Hill Library will be throwing a big birthday bash between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., and there'll be plenty of fun for everyone.
More information is available by visiting www.santaclaracountylib.org/morganhill.
Martin Cheek Marty Cheek is the author of 'The Silicon Valley Handbook.' His column appears every other Friday. You can reach him by email.
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