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My love affair with the Enoch Pratt Free Library continues.

Ever since we moved downtown, I've felt privileged to live within walking distance of the main branch of the public library. Most of my life, I've used small town or suburban libraries with limited collections and limited space - libraries which, by necessity, cull older and less popular books on a regular basis. The main branch, on the other hand, seems to have unlimited amounts of storage space underground. When I was working my way through Trollope's Palliser novels, the librarian brought me up a 1910 edition of The Eustace Diamonds which hadn't been checked out in twenty years. And when I went on a Georgette Heyer binge - something I'd wanted to do for years, but was held back by libraries containing only one or two Heyers, always in large print - the fiction librarian trotted out every single one of them for me, from deep in the bowels of the basement. Cheerfully.

Now, on Friday mornings, we go to story hour for non-walkers. I discovered, in a news article about the program, that we are far from their target demographic - the program was designed to increase the likelihood that kids will be ready for kindergarten at age five by addressing gaps in basic social development:

The Mother Goose on the Loose program offers children and parents training in such simple but fundamental tasks as sitting still, repeating mnemonic sounds, and recognizing word and melody patterns. The program is open to children from birth to 4 years old. [...]

The National Center for Education Statistics “asked kindergarten teachers what skills were most needed for school readiness,” says Betsy Diamant-Cohen, creator of the Mother Goose on the Loose program. “In the bottom 24 percent was knowing your ABCs, 123s, colors, and shapes. [At the top were] knowing how to regulate yourself, knowing how to sit and listen, paying attention, responding to a person giving directions, following directions, responding to a teacherlike figure, relating to other children, being empathetic, being able to express emotions in a positive way, feeling self-confident and capable. Once the Pratt found those statistics, we were able to make the push on early literacy.”

But even though we're not part of the population who needs the service, the children's librarian seems to be delighted to see us every week. She remembers Alex's name and cheerfully accepts her tendency (which, admittedly, is not uncommon among story hour participants) to put everything in her mouth.

I went to the library after work last night. I got some good books for myself, including an anthology of travel writing by women called No Place For a Lady and an account of a modern tall-ship circumnavigation. I watched the fiction librarian speak kindly and respectfully with an inarticulate young woman who had two teen romances in her hand and was asking (without providing greater specifics) for books that were "more adult." And, in the children's department, an eager librarian helped me find some books for Alex which capitalize on her current enjoyment of strong rhyme schemes, while not requiring her to be able to follow a plot.

More and more, the library is a big part of the reason why I want to stay in our current neighborhood when we buy a house.