Behold the Library of the Future!

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After spending waaaaay too many hours with ink-stained fingers, I recently decided to drag myself into the digital world.  This included buying and learning Adobe Photoshop -- a double-challenge as I am both stingy and lazy.  I asked Mary what I should draw to practice, and she suggested The Library of the Future.

"The what," you say?

A few weeks ago, Brooklyn librarian Rita Meade participated in a city-wide competition in which kids wrote essays describing "The Library of the Future."  She recently posted some of her favorite responses on her excellent blog, Screwy Decimal.[1. Screwey Decimal is sort of a repository for all the adorable things kids say to her at work.  For a less adorable blog about things overhead at work, I direct you all to Our Valued Customers, where Mr. Tim does a daily comic strip documenting something he overheard at his local comic shop.]  I'll reprint them here (her responses are in parentheses):

1) "The future library will be located in a spaceship. The spaceship will have blue tables and purple chairs. The walls of the future library will be green and magenta. Also, the future library will have many skylights."

2) "Libraries will have flying desks and iPads for each person." (Is this in the budget?)

3) "The future library will be open twenty four hours." (I'm not sure, but I THINK this goes against union bylaws.)

4) "The library will have ninety thousand computers. The library will also have a café."

5) "If you have a book that is out of date, it will warp back to the library. It also allows you to warp to other libraries."
6) "Libraries will be floating in the sky. People will have their own planes to get there."

7) "As much as I love the library, I’m 100% sure future libraries would be even more awesome. Just think how amazing the library will be in the future, with robots and electronics."

8) "I also believe that there will be robot librarians. But then again a lot of people know that someday robots will take over the world. Also people think that there will be a war of good robots vs bad robots but here is the good part about all this is that the good robots will be teamed up with all of humanity. But earth is a very strong place and can fight with or without human help." (This kid's going to be a sci-fi writer, you wait and see.)

9) "[Robot librarians] will be very cost effective because we will not have to pay them." (Thanks, kid!)

10) "The librarians are so friendly, even the shyest person in the world won't be shy anymore." (Awww.)

So, I sat down and tried my best to draw a picture of the wonders described by our young prophets.  To see all the details, click through the image:

Awesome, right?  I fit in pretty much everything but the iPads, which I sincerely doubt will be around in the future (unlike evil robots, which are fact).