“Couldn’t Have Done It Without You”

by Patrick J., November 2007

The Champaign Public Library transcends any common notion or manifestation of what a library is assumed to be. The librarians have an uncanny knowledge of exactly what I am interested in because they place books with the front covers facing out on the shelves I am browsing causing me to pick up the book even if I wasn’t looking for it or knew it existed. Whenever I play stump-the-reference-librarian they never lose. An elderly patron had an accident and was attended to by a librarian without hesitation. This speaks more of Community than Institution. Although the building is freezing cold even in the summer (hint) the staff are always warm and friendly. The selection of titles is amazing. The book sales are the single most important thing to advance my research and I could not have accomplished what I had set out to do without the sales or the library.