The Library Smells Wrong

I should probably start by saying this before anyone from City Hall reads the rest: the new library is beautiful.

Seriously. It is.

There’s daylight everywhere. The study spaces actually have outlets where people need them. The computers no longer sound like they’re preparing for takeoff, the new catalog and checkout systems are ridiculously fast, and I can now find out where a book is without performing the ancient librarian ritual of walking around muttering shelf numbers to myself.

I love working here.

And yet, this morning I caught myself missing the old place.

Not the broken chairs. Not the terrible lighting. Definitely not the corner near History where the carpet had developed its own ecosystem.

I miss the big wooden shelves. The slightly gloomy aisles where you could disappear for twenty minutes. The smell of paper, wood, dust and old books that had been sitting in exactly the same spot since somebody checked out The Da Vinci Code for the first time.

The new library smells like fresh wood and clean air.

Which, objectively, is an improvement.

Emotionally? Suspicious.

Maybe buildings need time to become libraries. Maybe in ten years there’ll be scratches on the tables, forgotten notes tucked inside books, coffee rings we pretend not to see and one shelf that inexplicably smells weird no matter how often we clean it.

For now, though, I’ll happily take the sunlight, the new systems and a building that finally feels ready for the next twenty years.

But if anyone has a small jar of authentic pre-renovation library dust, my desk is behind the counter.

I promise not to judge you.

Much.