A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life. Henry Ward Beecher T his is one of two quotations I have in my office. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change, windows on the world and lighthouses erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind.
Books are humanity in print.
The latter will come home with me as I retire this October. Voorheesville Public Library Director Gail Alter Sacco gave me this framed print when we moved into our new building in June, 1992. I need to carry it with me, because it speaks so well to what I have always felt to be true, and why I have been involved with libraries and books all my life. I have often re-read these lines, and they always remind me why I m here. As a child of the 60s, I feel a line from a rock song is always apropos, and so I think of the Grateful Dead, What a long, strange trip it s been.