Books come to them

How great is this picture? I love it for so many reasons. First of all, that font is so old school and plain and yet somehow fantastic. I do admit, however, that it has a little bit of the creepy about it, as if some disturbed person typed this out anonymously on their typewriter with the fading ribbon and then placed it on the librarian's desk at the local library branch. In reality, a poster maker made this for the New York Public Library. I found when trolling for pictures with the tag libraries at Flickr.

It is such an emphatic sign. I am sure the author is letting patrons know that if ever they had need of books and they couldn't make it to the library, that there are options out there like a mobile library service. Of course, people who need that service might not be able to make it to the library to read the sign.

This picture also got me thinking about how books are experienced in today's digital age. Personally, a book is made of paper pages that you can turn and touch and smell and experience physically. For others, the physical act of holding a book and turning the pages is maybe not as important as the content of the book and so they read books on Kindle or iPhones or other digital devices. Or you can listen to books in your car or on your iPod. The idea that books are available in a limited number of ways has changed dramatically. Pretty cool.