Reading Options for the End of the World
DR: Frequently, I write articles for various Gettysburg area publications promoting the library where I work. As an organization, we supply a minimum of three articles to these publications each week. That’s 156 articles each year written by ten or fifteen employees. As you can imagine, it gets hard to keep the content fresh. As my company’s finance directory, my area of expertise can be pretty dull—where our funding comes from, what we spend it on—especially if I regurgitate the same information eight or nine times per year. I rarely write about the finances.
The other writers each have a programmatic area they oversee with events planned several times per month. For them, coming up with article topics, I assume, is as simple as looking at the calendar. On the other hand, my topics tend to be random and offbeat, sort of whatever pops into my head that week (very much like my blog). Below is the article I submitted this week on library materials for the visually impaired. I think it’s a clever take on a serious topic and an entertaining way to convey the information.
I wanted to post it here, because while the county-specific figures I’ve included are only pertinent locally, I think the general topic holds true for most public libraries.
What I wrote:
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[Rod Serling voice-over]: Consider Mr. Henry Bemis, a small, quiet man in a large, bustling city. A bespeckled, strange character who prefers to immerse himself in books rather than live his life. Due to a demanding boss and his scornful wife, Mr. Bemis can’t find a quiet moment to read. In just a moment, fate will conspire to offer Mr. Bemis ample time with no distractions, a world to himself with unlimited books, in the Twilight Zone (cue music).
Do you remember this episode? Time Enough at Last has been ranked repeatedly as the number one fan favorite from The Twilight Zone’s five season run. It’s been decades since I’ve watched any episodes (except this one, which I watched this morning at four a.m.), but I can still remember quite a few plot-lines I prefer to this one. Regardless, a library article is nothing without books, so this is the episode I chose.
Henry Bemis, a bank teller, sneaks away to the vault for his lunch break—a quiet place where no one is likely to find him. As he dines, he dives into Dickens’ David Copperfield, a book he’s been trying to steal time to read since the beginning of the episode. Suddenly, the vault is shaken by a massive explosion that renders Henry unconscious. When he comes to hours later, he learns that an atomic war has destroyed civilization. He is only spared by the lead-lined, underground vault where he hid to read.
Inspecting his city, he finds nothing but destruction. No intact buildings and no people either. In the ruins of a grocery store, he finds countless cans of food strewn about. “Well, I won’t starve,” he says to himself. Henry’s inability to find any other survivors threatens to drive him mad. He’s about at his end when he realizes he’s wandered in to the ruins of the city library. Books are scattered about the street. As Henry collects them, he rattles off an account of the prizes he has found: “Theworks of Charles Dickens, the works of George Bernard Shaw, Shelly, Browning, Keats, Shakespeare, all the books I’ll ever want, all the books I need.”
As Henry celebrates his good fortune and newfound reason to live, he stumbles on some rubble and his glasses fall to the ground. The lenses break into pieces. The camera view shifts to Henry’s blurry vision. No more reading for him. Yet another ironic twist… in The Twilight Zone.
Sigh! If this exact scenario happens to you, don’t freak out. The Adams County Library System has several options for visually impaired readers.
First and foremost, we have a huge collection of large print books, 4,500 of them in all genres to choose from. They are just like the rest of our books, except the font is increased so people with eyesight issues can still read the words.
If the internet is working, which it is today and might be even after a nuclear holocaust, you have our eCollection to explore. Despite your vision troubles, our 43,000 eAudio Books are always an option. They are just like books on CD, except you can stream them through your device. And with font-sizing options on most eReaders, any of our 89,000 eBooks can now serve as a large print book.
On the outside chance that the internet disappears forever, simply find some batteries amidst the canned goods scattered around the wreckage of any former grocery store. You can fire up a battery-operated CD player and borrow some of our 3,600 Audio Books.
I think we readers are always looking for “time enough” to delve into our books. Hopefully we won’t need to wait for Armageddon to carve out that time. But for those who aren’t reading now because seeing the print is too challenging, please explore these options.
Lastly, the federal government and the Pennsylvania government run programs for visually impaired people. Books come by mail preloaded on audio devices. These devices are simple to use and 100% free. Ask at any branch for help signing up for one or both of these services.
Jeff Cann
Finance Director and Sci-Fi Nerd
Adams County Library System
