Our National Treasures: Public Libraries

photo credit: Evan Stankovics

Weekly outings to the nearby public library highlighted my childhood. Books everywhere and free to borrow. Emptying our home a half century later, I returned (on time) my mother’s last stash to the library.

Nothing beat a quick sneak retreat to my college’s rare books room. Eyes closed late afternoon, surrounded by all that wisdom slowly seeping into me, I emerged with secret powers.

Librarians at the community college introduced me to the interlibrary loan jackpot. Handwritten letters and poems. “New” texts by ancient philosophers.

Public libraries. A bedrock of democracy. Essential for healthy democracies and necessary for their survival.

photo credit: Evan Stankovics

For months I’d looked forward to my 2020 book event at the library a few miles away. Here we are two years later, and April 30 that day arrives at last. A toast to four library lovers—two staff members and two book imbibers.

Evan, my host next Saturday, serves as the Northside Adult Programming Librarian. He was drawn to the scope of librarianship, an ever-evolving field of possibilities. He thrives interacting with patrons and listening to stories—maybe they discover they grew up in the same Jersey shore town or they’re fans only of an author’s early work. Evan meets with community members and neighbors, rather than “customers or consumers.” Here’s what he says about the role of libraries in a functional democracy. “There are few public spaces these days that are open to everyone without conditions or requirements—safe spaces, where the public can engage with one another, exchange ideas, educate and in turn be educated. It is a community space that brings people together - all ages, races, religions, cultures. A space that is ultimately shaped and characterized by the diverse influences of its community, not by a standardized or pre-conceived model. Equity and accessibility are the words the public library lives by. This is a space for all.”

And the library adaptation to the pandemic? How do you serve the public in a closed, or limited capacity, building? Evan ups his ante. “You cease to look at the library as confined to four brick and mortar walls. Ensuring access, we ramped up our online and digital services, conducted programs and story times over Zoom, expanded curbside pick-ups, and distributed COVID testing kits when they were in extreme demand. Admittedly clunky at times, we made it work and learned a lot. Libraries were never so important than during the pandemic, and expectations have grown significantly—we welcome that whole-heartedly.”

Tess works at the Central Library in downtown Charlottesville, walking or riding the bus to her job in Shelving Support. Given the library’s location, the staff provides access and hope to the most financially vulnerable. Homeless patrons use computers to look for jobs and deal with personal affairs, sit comfortably and read, and sometimes use the building as a haven from the weather. “They’re patrons, just like everyone else. All we ask in return of all patrons is to respect our space, our staff, our materials, and of course, the other patrons. I wouldn’t want to change that vital aspect of public libraries.” Tess cites two favorite daily rewards. She’s almost memorized the adult reference section and therefore can offer patrons immediate help. And she has her own desk.

Dan marveled that the Dewey decimal system made finite the endless range of subjects he spied at a local branch library, drawers of card catalogues for a young boy to explore. Again, the phrase “free books” enchants. “My wife and I borrow a lot of books. (In 2021, we checked out 256 items from the Northside Library.) I like that we can see them, hold them, ponder them, pick them up or put them down, start them or stop them, read them or not (we do not read them all). And when we are through with them, we give them back. And someone else can do the same, for free.” Dan warmed and also powered devices at the library for four January days without power. He nods with me to the library’s pivotal role in democracy: “In an effort to counter book bans and censorship in various parts of the country, the Brooklyn Public Library is offering young people nationwide free access to hundreds of thousands of eBooks, audiobooks, and online databases.

College roommate Eleanor read books nonstop in our small dorm room—not the ones required for her classes, “just good books.” Now? “First thing I do when I move to a new city? I hustle off to get my library card and then I feel I belong—in Atlanta GA, Washington DC, Princeton NJ, Kwang Ju in South Korea, Richmond VA, Jacksonville FL.” A traveler, she brings home books on her latest destinations, copies pages of interest and marks sights and restaurants to surprise her companions. Having scored her first library card at age six, Eleanor escorted her grandchild at the same age to the Greenville SC library to do the same. “We had the time of our lives.”

These library devotees choose our music. Though separated by generations, Tess and Eleanor unite as Beatles groupies. Tess buys a “Ticket to Ride.” Eleanor sends her off: “Well, shake it up, baby, now Twist and Shout.”

Jon Batiste’s shoutout / danceabout to “Freedom” moves runner Dan’s feet. “We’re overdue for a little more prancing.” Oh, we owe ourselves a lot more prancing. Guess what. “Now it’s your time.” Evan replays one much-loved harmony, “Helplessly Hoping” with Crosby, Stills, & Nash. “Gasping at glimpses / of gentle true spirit.” Repeat. “We are “for-or each other.” Repeat.

A fifteen-year-old girl revels in the “Maple Valley Branch Library, 1967” in Akron, Ohio. Listen to her memories of unbridled joy. Seduced by the aroma of wisdom and the entire universe within reach, poet Rita Dove cruises from geometry fractals to pineapple Jell-O moulds, fingers leather and parchment, slips slyly into the adult section, and imagines the reading list that implants the librarian’s permanent half-smile. Finished for the day, she recalls “on my plastic card’s imprint I took / greedily: six books, six volumes of bliss.”

Bliss. I’d like to check that out, please. Renew indefinitely? Yes, ho whoa, yes, please.

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