You know those plastic bags the library gives you when it’s raining out or you’ve checked out more than an armful of heavy tomes? White, with blue lettering – I love my library(!) – they cheerfully proclaim. I for one am always pleased to receive such an appropriate sack in which to carry home my new temporary friends. It’s true. I do love my library!

Admittedly, I’m the sort of person who loves most libraries. From the one of my childhood where I first discovered “Little House on the Prairie” and the Baby-sitters Club to the sheer grandeur and immensity of the Library of Congress, I have yet to meet a library for which I didn’t feel at least a glimmer of affection. But here, I feel more. I think it might be love. I could commit to this library. In fact, if I didn’t have to graduate, I would. I could spend the rest of my days getting lost in the stacks, napping on the Grainger couches, staying current on world affairs with a daily check-in at the History, Philosophy and Newspaper Library. If ever the real world got too scary I could pop into the children’s book section of the Education library for some Berenstain Bears or Pokey Little Puppy.

Everyone has heard the mythic tales of our library. The largest public academic library in the country, 10.5 million volumes, absolutely better than all the rest save such prestigious collegiate colleagues as Harvard and Yale, the New York Public Library and the aforementioned granddaddy of them all, the Library of Congress.

It doesn’t take long for new students to figure out that Grainger is the best place to go when you absolutely cannot afford to be distracted or waste time, although it can be a little rough if you’re not a math or science-related major (my books, which are utterly devoid of numbers except those counting the pages, receive open glares of scorn and condescension).

Likewise, most are aware that the Undergraduate Library has an Espresso Royale and laptops, the Rare Book and Manuscript Library has an original Gutenberg Bible (oh yeah!), and the Agriculture library has hands-down the best name – who wants to hit up the FUNK later?

But few know about the Student Life and Culture Archive, a project started in 1989 that chronicles the college life at the University from a personal student perspective. Underground publications, freshman English papers, letters written home to Mom and Dad, photographs on the Quad of now long-married couples – it’s like a giant scrapbook of those who traveled the paths we’re traveling now, what it would have been like had you been born 20 or 40 or 60 years earlier.

Likewise, not many are aware of the University Library’s latest project, teaming up with Google and other Midwest libraries to digitalize and make publicly available an incredible 10 million volumes. This shared digital repository will add yet another layer to our already stellar online library, making research possible on an even faster and broader scale.

Finally, the span between knowledge and use can be deep and wide. All these resources do precious little good if no one is encountering them.

The library staff does an excellent job of combating this problem. From 10 a.m. to midnight every day, a librarian is available to chat on AOL, MSN, Yahoo and Google chat. Alongside every hyper-active 10th grader with a computer and that garage band down the street no one cares about, the library is now on Facebook and MySpace. I’m shocked it doesn’t have a text messaging service set-up yet, but I bet it will soon.

In addition, the library offers training – the Writers Workshops, how to best navigate our extensive catalogue, how to get the most out of research. Not to mention the fact that the Undergraduate Library and Grainger are open almost all of the time.

In fact, they’re probably open right now. So go check something out, literally.