I also have strong memories of going to the public library when I was little. My mom would just leave us in the kids/adolescent sections to browse books and pick ones that we wanted to check out, while she went and got books of her own to read. I loved reading as a child and I feel like that has stuck with me pretty consistently, though I wish I had more time to read then I find that I do these days. Maybe some day soon I'll find some more!
I've actually been spending more time at my public library and I'm always pretty surprised at how many people I see in the library, especially young people. There is a huge room for kids and activities at our library and there are always a lot of people in the research rooms and quiet rooms, writing and reading. I also feel like the librarians really embrace the new technology and are doing a great job with integrating tools that help kids learn, read and conduct research in ways that I never had to when I was in high school. I had to look things up in the card catalog and try to track in down on the shelf and now with electronic cataloging, young people have a wealth of information with which to learn that would have been much more difficult to access back when I was writing high school term papers.
Also, I feel like there is a big surge in the YA books category lately. I think I can name at least five or six huge book series for the YA set and they have devoured those books voraciously and it has inspired them to write fan fiction, make art and imagine ways to immerse themselves in these stories that would not be possible without the access to new technology that we have today. I guess I kind of find myself feeling surprised when these books are so popular, but really it's refreshing, because it means that kids still love to read! I think they will for a long time to come, just maybe in different ways than we are used to seeing.
