The Great Pyramid of Giza? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? They're nothing compared to the modern library.

From any computer in the country, I can pull down articles from magazines such as Aluminum International Today or request a book on cat obesity through interlibrary loan.

That doesn't mean I don't miss the way libraries used to be. It's like getting a new boyfriend who has a voice as sweet as Jerry Garcia's and gives back rubs without being asked. You really, really dig him, but that doesn't mean you don't occasionally ache for the old boyfriend who gave you rides on his four-wheeler through the rust-colored Bedford County mud.

First off, let's have a moment of silence for the card catalog. As a kid, I'd spend hours flipping through the thing. I might start out looking for a book on malaria (I was a bit of a worrier) and all of a sudden find books on monkeys, monkey puzzles and monkfish. Without the card catalog, I'd never have known about existentialism, exobiology or exorcisms, much less monkfish. And where would I be then?

The loss of the checkout card also weighs heavily on my heart. (This may come as a shock to those born after 1989, but people borrowing books used to have to scribble their names on this white thingy that looked like an index card.)

When signing my name, I always used my best cursive handwriting. I loved knowing that whoever checked out "My Antonia" a year down the line would see my scrawl. I knew I'd probably never be a movie star or rescue a puppy from a burning building, but I could rest assured that in years to come, someone might glance at my name when they checked out the same musty novel. It was a way of saying, "Beth Jones was here."

The cards also let me know who came before. While a student at Hollins University, I checked out a book with a card that bore Annie Dillard's signature. Knowing that I'd checked out the same novel, read the very same introductory paragraph, as that Pulitzer Prize-winning author made me feel like all of us, famous and not famous, are connected somehow in that whole cosmic sense.

Today, librarians use those same cards to jot down to-do lists. All those white paper rectangles with my bubbly cursive signature? Used for scraps. It's like carving your initials on a tree and coming back to find it chopped down to make room for a double-wide.

Sure, the modern library lets me type "alpaca" into the computer and pull up call numbers lickety-split, but, unlike the old card catalog, it won't simultaneously show me that the library also has books on Alpheus and alpinists - books that will come in handy if I ever want to talk about the Greek river god while climbing Mount Rainier.

Don't get me wrong, I love the boyfriend. I couldn't function without all the research tools the boyfriend puts at my fingertips. Sometimes, though, I can't help feeling a little sad that the old boyfriend has left town and won't be back again.

TUESDAY: Cody Lowe recalls the TV test patterns of his bygone youth.