Libraries Have I Loved

Authors are always on about buying books. (And far be it from me to dissuade you. Me too, I am always buying books. My house looks like a library.) But really what authors are always on about is reading. I am often writing a book, but I am always reading one¹.

Libraries are temples to and for reading, but less sacred than a temple, not because they’re not holy but because they’re open to all — one needn’t be devout or devoted to be welcome. Libraries are full of books you’ll love. When you finish a book you love, the library will have more. When a book you love raises questions, the library has answers. Want them from a different perspective? In another language? Via a different medium? Through another genre? From a far off time or place? Delivered as a seminar, workshop, or tutorial? Available despite their ideas going against the agenda of the powers-that-be? The library has all of this. Libraries are often cited as last bastions of democracy. This is because they offer the whole world the whole world.

My earliest memories are of libraries. Are everyone’s? If we catalogued readers’ earliest memories, I’m betting a significant percentage would take place in libraries. My toddlerhood library had a kangaroo chair made of molded yellow plastic — you sat in her lap and rocked back on her tail — that was the greatest thing I’d ever seen. But even better than the chair, this place let you take home whatever books you wanted. For free! God, the wonder of that when I was three is something I’m still not over.

The internet has NO RECORD of this chair that I can find. Honestly, when was the last time you googled something and turned up nothing relevant at all? Kind of refreshing, but you'll have to use your imagination about the chair.

Libraries are full of good lessons for small children: There is so much to know. There are so many stories. Reading is fun. It is good to learn and pretend to be someone else. It is good to share and borrow and return. You won’t love everything, and that’s fine — try again. You will be trusted with precious things — books, choices, knowledge, other people’s stories — and you can aim to be worthy of them. Everyone — everyone, everyone — needs and deserves access to books, resources, information, words, history, perspective, and ideas, as well as clean, well-lit, safe spaces in which to engage with them. You are a part of a community, and your community is a part of you.

That library had two entire shelves of I Can Read Books. And I could read them. Can you imagine how empowering that was? Also how lasting. I still quote Harry the Dirty Dog to my often-dirty dog at least once a week. To wit…

A white dog with black spots

A dirty dog considering the suggestion that she needs a bath with side-eyed literary skepticism

All of that is still true. But, since I was three, the scopes and natures and purviews of libraries have not just changed; they’ve expanded. Libraries still recommend and lend books. They still let you take home whatever you want. They still answer questions and lead programming. But they’re increasingly² also ad hoc social services providers. Keeping libraries open to all means librarians — who are trained in texts and research — are also helping patrons find meds, meals, clothing, childcare, facilities, equipment, homes, technology, jobs, green cards, emergency services, conflict resolution…this list could go on.

My adult library branch. Lovely but no kangaroo chairs.

And as if the growth of that part of the job weren’t demanding enough, librarians are now also nothing less than the arbiters of truth because they are the ones most capable of discerning it. As verifying everything gets harder and harder, as you can literally no longer believe your eyes, librarians are the ones — increasingly the only ones — who know the way. They’re battling misinformation. They’re battling censorship. They’re battling to keep books on shelves. They’re standing steadfastly in the way of those who would keep from you information and knowledge and education and power.

Next week, on Wednesday afternoon, I’m giving a book talk at a local senior center. This talk is organized and sponsored by Seattle Public Library. On the same day, other SPL programming includes: family story time, bilingual story time, a debt management seminar, a pre-school art class, a World Cup watch party, a movie night, LEGO club, puzzle club, game night, a virtual citizenship class, teen zone, books and beats for readers with memory loss, car maintenance, go-bag organization, poetry potluck, a sensory-friendly music performance, and pet painting³. They are way beyond books. But also? They’ve got a lot of really wonderful books.

Here in Seattle, we have a library levy to approve on our August ballot. Some choices are hard. Sometimes politics are complicated, and there are difficult compromises on all sides. Prop 1 is…not that. Of course we’re going to vote to support libraries! If only all questions were this easy⁴. If you’re in Seattle, please please vote YES on Prop 1!

If you’re in Minnesota, on the other hand, maybe you will join me at the end of July when I will be helping raise money for the Brainerd Public Library at this event. Or, closer to Minneapolis-St. Paul, I will be at the Stillwater Public Library on July 29 with book-whisperer Pamela Klinger-Horn, and we would love to see you there.

If you’re not in Seattle or Minnesota, nonetheless you almost certainly have a library, and it almost certainly needs you and has much to offer you as well. Not for nothing, but when it’s 102 degrees out and your soccer team loses and the news cycle is unspeakable and your toddler is bored and you’re (horror of horrors) out of things to read or otherwise at loose ends, you will find your local library to be a place of great and cool answers and solace and community.

There are SO MANY good books on the subject I could recommend this week, but I’m going with Susan Orlean’s brilliant (and brilliantly titled) The Library Book.

This is nonfiction about a) the 1986 fire in the Los Angeles Central Library that reached 2500 degrees, burned for seven hours, and destroyed a million books, b) who set it, how, and why — ooh, a mystery!, and c) the history of the Los Angeles Public Library and its role in the city in the present day. I learned a lot. And as Jennifer Caloyeras from the lovely Books Are My People podcast recently reminded me, Susan Orlean reads the audiobook, and it’s just dreamy.

I’ve linked throughout this post to Libro.FM, bookshop.org, and Susan’s substack as well as her own website, but you know where else you can find this book? I think you do.

xo
go vote (if applicable)
Love Laurie

1. Lies. I am always reading several.

2. For this was always true. Now it’s just truer.

3. I took this to be painting your pet — like you bring your dog and paint her pretty colors — but I am realizing now it might mean making a painting of your pet. Best come prepared for either.

4. In fact, what’s hard is remembering to vote in August. Don’t forget to vote Yes on Prop 1!