I remember clearly being taken to the local library as a child and being mesmerised by the endless shelves, with every single book cover beckoning me and promising new adventures.

I would agonise over my choices and wondered just how many I could take home and get through before my next visit.

The fact that these precious little items were for me to take home and have all to myself, albeit just for a few weeks, was pure magic.

When I was about 11-years-old, I took it upon myself to catalogue every book in our house (there were quite a few books) and log them in a custom-made database that I wrote myself with DOS commands and coding (major nerd alert).

I then issued library cards to my brothers and cousins and forced them to borrow books each week – of course fining them for any late returns.

Okay more than nerdy – a little obsessive – but I couldn’t help it. I loved libraries.

In high school I’d find any excuse to go to the library and run my fingers along the shelves, and I took unfathomable pleasure in mastering the Dewey Decimal system – the old school kind of drawers with little cards in it – not a computer in sight.

As an adult, I don’t get to the library nearly as much as I’d like to, but if I really need to get some work done without the distractions of home, I know my local library is the perfect sanctuary.

While many of my friends and colleagues have moved over to Kindles or Ibooks, I have still resisted on the most part. I buy Ibooks mainly for informational or educational purposes, but if there’s a book I really want to fall in love with, it has to be hard copy. One that I can admire as it sits proudly on my shelf and reminds me how much I enjoyed the adventure of reading it.

For this reason, I hope there will always be a place for the libraries and hard copy books of my childhood.

My dream one day is to have a house big enough that allows for a double story library, with one of those fancy ladders on a runner. So yes nerdy, obsessive, old fashioned – I don’t care because it’s all magical to me.