I have been tagged by Daphne to do the page 123 meme. I have somehow managed to never have done this one, always meant to. Well, now, here we go.

Get yourself to the nearest book, flip to page 123, and copy the 5th sentence out here…

As repositories of history or sources for the future, as guides or manuals for difficult times, as symbols of authority past or present, the books in a library stand for more than their collective contents, and have, since the beginning of writing, been considered a threat.

Why are they a threat? Because libraries and their contents question the power of authority. That’s from Alberto Manguel’s The Library at Night. He goes on to quote Tacitus:

We scorn the blindness of those who believe that with an arrogant act even the memory of posterity can be extinguished.

Books, preserving memory, questioning authority, no wonder I am studying to become a librarian. Why I didn’t think to do this twenty years ago, I’ll never know. I’m just glad I can do it now. If someone ever tries to ban a book at my library, I’m not so sure I will be very nice. People will no longer say “she’s gone postal” the new phrase will be “she went all librarian on them.”