pictured words

Toledo Main

This grand dame has stood tall since 1937, all while stooping to serve our region “of makers, dreamers, and doers.”   She seems the heartbeat of downtown, freely welcoming all who want to peruse the volumes of knowledge and wonder she houses.  I believe anything you want to learn about our own region, and branching out into the far reaches of the known universe, may be found within her walls.  You may ask what would make us want to look through her books, what with the world at our fingertips in such a literal sense via the phone in our hand.  It’s hard to imagine that some may have never fingered through paper pages filled with words that others over generations have fingered and read as well.  In a library, history is not found in the pages of history books alone, but in the pages of every book on every shelf .. each page silently chronicling the very fingerprints of those who have been there before us.  How many lives have touched the book we now hold in our hand?  How many have absorbed and come to an understanding quite like our own?  Or perhaps nothing like our own? How many people like us, or immeasurably different, have we made eye contact with as we skim the world-wide web?  How many have we smiled at, and potentially rescued their day … or they, ours?

Gather the volumes
and let volumes speak of you.
Be read.  Read others.

© Marie Elena Good, 2023