Letters to the Editor
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Loving the Midwest
I live in the great state to the east of Mr. Keillor, and I enjoy our brand new library at least once a week with my children. I also enjoy the downtown urban libraries of the large cities where I have lived and currently work.
Maybe some of you are missing the point... these libraries must be democratic. Show me anywhere else where these (undesirable?) people can go during the day and not be booted out.
I have lived in Cleveland, Stockton, Seoul, Madison, and small town USA. I get my library card before updating my driver's license every time. While not always the idyllic spot in the essay, still worth every penny. It is sad to hear that many of you are seeing them disappear. My hope is that my passion for libraries will stay with my kids as they become mentors for the generation that follows them.
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Some readers missing the point
I think a lot of people are reading too much into the library scenario that GK painted, making it seem like his major point being that libraries are perfect places and that is where democracy and the future thrives. I didn't read it that way. Sure maybe he didn't mention the people who stay there all day and smell like they need a shower. He mentioned seeing some kids of a different ethnic origin doing some studying at the library and seeing that was a welcome sight compared to tuning into the digital media outlets where you are bombarded with stupidity and the escalation of stupidity coming from people who want to be the next President of the United States. He's trying to draw a comparison as to how out of touch some of these presidential candidates have become compared to every day people in places like libraries and grocery stores. When advocating torture has become the "in" thing to be discussing at a national level, you need some escape, some inspiration.
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Islands of sanity
I could relate to this article more now than I could have when I was in high school. Some American libraries are bastions of civility in an often less-than-civil society, but I go there now for the free wide bandwidth. Back in high school libraries were boring, I'd rather have been out riding my bike and if I did visit a library it was to use books as camouflage to gawk over at the those flowering awe-inspiring high school girls, so kudos to the Hmong for being a more serious student than I ever was. One thing I believe the Hmong and hundreds of thousands of other recent legal immigrants like them appreciate, is that the USA remains even under Republicans like one huge global library, a welcoming comfort zone in a world of chaos often run by a cavalcade of angry non-white men.
I don't believe it's necessary to point out the color of the complexion of the european-americans running for president. Coming from a european it could be mistaken for not liking what one was, even if one had no choice in the matter.
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what library ?
I too, live in Jackson County Oregon, Medford, to be exact. Back in 2000 I believe, someone decided that this was an issue to put to the (quite uninformed) voters for building 14 libraries in a county with a population of under 150,000 people. And of course, the voters, in their infinite wisdom, went for it, the bonds were issued, the 3rd to the last one was built and opened this past March, and the other 2 are still being built as far as i can tell. but then on April 6 they all closed, due to federal funding (welfare) being cut off, (which is a whole other story in itself !) No one ever brings up the topic of the old (beautiful) Carnegie Library, which is still languishing away in downtown, as needed upkeep and repairs become more expensive every day.
The main branch in Medford was pretty iffy, most of the homeless people in town seem to spend their whole day there reading newspapers and magazines, and some parents apparently think that the librarians there are babysitters as they drop off the kids to run and scream and hog the computers. But at least it was available. Now we have some enterprising folks coming up with book swaps and reading programs, but mostly for the kids, and there seems to be no hope for the near future anyway. So we adults, unless we can afford new books (I cannot) we are just screwed. And nobody give a dam !
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Long live libraries!
I want to echo some others.
Everyone hates LA, but in its burbs (Santa Monica and Torrance are the two I visited recently) you can find real libraries (ugly-modern variety). Not quite as quiet as they used to be, but quiet enough to study or think, with lots of good books.
In LA they cheat: weather is illegal, so the homeless folks hang out at the beach in the sunshine, and extreme urban sprawl can put a fair distance between enterprising Hmong students and undesirables.
In Yemen (where I live now), libraries are unknown -- we are stuck with the Internet, the British Council (when it finally reopens), and a nice homeschool mom with a killer book collection.
If you are in the US and don't like the local library, you need to get involved in local politics. Where I grew up, libraries are funded by local (county & city) property taxes. If they shut down the problem is local. The Federal Government should not have to pay for everything.
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Still a "Librarian"
Lovely article, but I beg to differ, darling...
Some of us still see value in the term "librarian." While some only make negative and nerdy associations, many still have positive associations with the term, such as knowledgeable, approachable, open-minded, organized, etc.
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everyone's right
I can actually agree with most of the contrasting letters here. When I began working at the Minneapolis Public Library, as a person of low income that institution had played an irreplaceable role in my life. I'd turned a year of unemployment into a rich learning experience because no matter my means, there was no book beyond my reach. I remember expressing something like the phrase "one of the nobler expressions of democracy" at a staff meeting at one of the branches there, memories of Ben Franklin's common sense of community dancing within me. Unfortunately, the bazaar subject of that meeting was an attempt to define what the head regional librarian called their "corporate culture". Why such a subject should even come up is beyond me, but there was always more interest in hiring consultants at exorbitant cost to design new logos and construct new buildings than stock the empty shelves of the branches in the poorest neighborhoods. After my first year, the elderly woman who had helped trained me, and referred to non-staff as "patrons", retired, and I never heard that again in my 7 years there. That word was always replaced in staff parlance with "customer", and children in the branches of the wealthier neighborhoods where I worked often would often beg their parents to "buy this" book in their hand, seemingly unaware of any other way of reading something.
But I remember the libraries you lovingly wrote about as a child in a small Iowa town, a quiet place where there seemed to be no limits before me.