When I was assistant director for the public library of Springfield, Illinois, one of my library board members was an elderly gentleman named Simeon Osby. Dapper, always smelling of cologne, sporting a precisely trimmed pencil-thin mustache, Simeon had lived through some interesting times.

You want to know what gives librarians nightmares? 16 millimeter films.

There was a time when forward-thinking libraries the nation round built up impressive collections of such films. Suddenly: videos. I've worked in libraries where it took years to finally purge the final 16 mm metal casing, and make way for the new format.

The Douglas Public Library District now has quite a good collection of videos. We have tens of thousands of them. You see where I'm heading?

DVDs.

I've worked in and around libraries most of my life, since I founded the Library Club in 7th grade (it sounds a little geeky now, but there you have it) until the dawn of the new millennium. But I, too, am always finding out new things about what a library does.

One of the head-scratching realizations of advancing age is that sometimes good people have honest disagreements with each other.

For the past several years now, the Douglas Public Library District has been working with Shea Homes and the Highlands Ranch Metropolitan Districts (HRMD) to jointly create a Town Center. All of the land once belonged to Shea, although the company has deeded parcels, free of charge, to the library and to HRMD.