Tuesday

The origin of words - etymology (from the Greek meaning true) - fascinates me. I have discovered that moonraker - the title of the James Bond movie - can mean simpleton from a story of two men found to be trying to 'rake' the reflection of the moon out of a pond. Or was it a barrel of smuggled brandy? Depends on which version you read.

And the word library comes from 'peel' as in a slice of bark or the papyrus on which our stories were originally written down. However, peel has other meanings, pulling back the layers to reach a core, for one, as we do when we read or write in order to undo the mysteries of existence.

Many authors attribute their choice of career and passions to entering a library. And I find the atmosphere in a library, not to mention the quirky mix of people, something special. Yet, knowledge is available from many different sources these days and, perhaps, books will become a thing of the past, so, maybe, our temples to them will too. Public libraries have been around for, what? 100 or 150 years? I wonder what community spaces will become as iconic to the coming generations?