Readers Write: Libraries are civic spaces that unite, inform

The Island Now

Public libraries have never really been about books. Nor children’s entertainment. Nor are Amazon and Starbucks gaining “market share” on libraries.

In response to the online kerfluffle that caused Forbesto expunge an article arguing that public libraries are obsolete, Blank Slate reporter Janelle Clausen interviewed many librarians and patrons (8/1/18), and described many great library services — and buried the lede.

Public libraries transform and integrate our communities.  They are uniquely American — civic spaces that help make us who we are, and more aware of who we can be.

This may sound highfalutin or fanciful, but I mean it quite literally. We associate public libraries with Benjamin Franklin, who created a lending library so paying members could improve themselves.

But it was steel-baron Andrew Carnegie who created our American culture of libraries.  He built a library in every town that met his terms: each library had to be free to everyone, with open stacks and separate children’s rooms, and maintained by local taxes.

Over half the 2500 buildings he funded remain as libraries today.

Public libraries are intrinsically local enterprises — public spaces with “open stacks” that welcome every segment of our community to engage together in learning and personal empowerment.

Like public schools, libraries hire specialized experts to guide “user experiences.” Unlike schools, libraries don’t hire truant officers — but even so, libraries bring together a greater diversity of users than any other public space or democratic institution.

Period. They’re known for being open to all, free, useful, filled with interesting collections and wide-ranging information sources — and staffed by librarians who welcome you and help you get what you need, even if that means leaving you alone to work.

Libraries are our community’s democratizing social spaces where, like Franklin and Carnegie, we’re still self-actualizing.

When you come to a library, as a child or teen or adult, you will see people you know and meet people you haven’t encountered before.

You may learn; you may teach.

Sometimes people come to the library to work silently in deep contemplation. Sometimes to work alone, but alongside others, quietly.

Perhaps you’ll come to collaborate: listen, participate, share leadership.  Or to get assistance — with a tax issue, buying a car, starting a business, understanding a medical issue, or seeking a job.

Sometimes you may consume culture (find a novel, hear a story, look at the art exhibit). Sometimes you may create culture (write a paper, create art, use a software program, add your voice to a political discussion).

Regardless, the library for each of us is a place where we come to learn and engage together, even when we work alone and silently.

Most of us know, intuitively, that all learning is a social act — regardless of how or with whom it is done. And most of us, based on experiences begun in childhood, associate libraries with self-motivated and self-directed learning, the best and most productive kind.

Librarians are a special sort of public servant: they maintain the space, the collections, the culture, while engaging with every patron on his or her unique terms.  Librarians consistently poll as among the most respected and needed public figures (like clergy and nurses).

They are the curators of the collections we value and our guides to gaining the greatest value from those collections.

Yes, they do books, but they also do digital and historical archives, and maker spaces and programs.

Librarians, to serve today’s patrons, with their dramatically different technological expectations, have evolved their expertise but maintain their fundamental approach: they help us learn.

People who don’t read, or who read only airport books, sometimes argue that “books will soon disappear” and so should libraries. Why would anyone need a library, they contend, if you have Google on your wrist or in your pocket?

This is like the myth of the “paperless office.”  Yes, ebook sales are increasing dramatically (from an initially small base), but print books are also growing.

Yes, the amount of information available online has expanded exponentially, but library usage has a correlated increase.

In fact, the heaviest consumers of the digital world, millennials, are also the most frequent users of libraries.

It may be that millennials, digital natives, know that engaging with technology — databases, software, pens/paper — is more productive when done in curated, collaborative space, together.

Can Amazon or Starbucks compete with libraries? Not a chance.  And aren’t we glad.

Judith B. Esterquest

Trustee of Manhasset Library

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