"After you have visited the library ten times to look at books, go once to look at the readers… Really look at the readers, see the features, gestures, and postures of each. Thus you will learn something you will probably not be able to learn as well anywhere else: Books are great, but man is greater." Martin Buber, "Advice to Frequenters of Libraries".
On the occasion of the 120th anniversary of the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem, I spent several months in the library and observed the readers, most of which turned the library into their second home for several decades.