Goodbye, Library

Just went online and changed all my public library holds so they expire on July 31st.

I almost cried.  This feels like pre-arranging a death.

Rebirth!  Rebirth!  Must focus on being reborn in a new and better place… though it’s hard to imagine a universe where I will not need a constant supply of shiny, happy library books.

The truth, however, is that more and more of my books have been coming from places other than the shelves of the library.  I still need a few hard-copy books for Shabbos and Yom Tov reading, but my Blackberry Playbook is a great ebook reader (I had a kobo touch before that, but with no backlighting, it was next to useless). I can still get free ebooks from the library, and there are other ways to obtain reading material that don’t depend on living walking-distance from a great English-language library branch.

So this is a good time to be leaving, technologically – it’s probably never been easier to get English-language reading materials in Israel.

Still.  It’s a bittersweet feeling – mostly bitter.  Some of the books on my list, I know, will not arrive in time. 

For one of them, I’m Patron 260 out of 283.  There’s no way 259 people can read however-many copies of the book they have in the next 4 months.

I wonder which of the many goodbyes in the next four months is going to be the hardest –?

Well, okay, besides the obvious – the Big Goodbye with our family.