Serendipitous Searching

I have come to the conclusion that performing a Google Image search is a fail-safe and fast-track route into the realms of serendipity. Yesterday I was looking for images of ampersands ... more specifically, I was looking for 'how to draw an ampersand' as source material for a new doodle that had popped into my noggin.

My search lead me to this image on the Snore & Guzzle blog

Something in the blogpost piqued my curiosity so I had a bit of a dig around and read through some more of their posts. By the time I got to a thought piece called 'Stacks', written by Michael Neault, I knew I'd found some kindred spirits. I love the clarity of his statements about the unique benefits of libraries:

"You can touch anything in the library. No one tries to sell you anything. Everything is free."

The focus of the blogpost is on how wandering aimlessly through the stacks can lead to discovering hidden treasures and a sense of purpose.



I agree wholeheartedly that there is something deeply therapeutic about wandering through libraries and stumbling across something you didn't know you were looking for - with the current threats to the future of UK public libraries I'm left wondering whether the serendipitous image searches I get a kick out of online could ever provide anywhere near the same level of therapeutic sustenance once all the library shelves are empty.



If I worked in a public library I would turn Michael's resonant prose into a poster and stick it to the front door:

"You can touch anything in the library. No one tries to sell you anything. Everything is free."

Links worth looking at (imho):
http://www.voicesforthelibrary.org.uk/wordpress/
The #savelibraries hashtag on Twitter
Philip Pullman's speech in defense of public libraries
Snore & Guzzle's 'About Us' page which only served to deepen my intellectual crush on them ... "Story-telling is not a luxury, it is an absolutely core need." {Robert Rosen} ... Amen to that.