Support Your Local Library

Safe House. Office. Launchpad. Libraries can be anything.

There are few places where one can work on projects of their own design at no cost, but the library remains one.

I’ve loved libraries since I can recall, those spaces out of time, those places of solace. Our elementary school library held volumes untold, and I took out weekly appetites. Peanuts and Narnia seem to hold up over time, I still go to Terabithia and will never forget Bunnicula, Incognito Mosquito or A Wrinkle In Time.

We often waited at the public library for a ride home from scouts or 4-H. I must have read every poem between A Light In The Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends. Dear god, where has the time has gone? There was a body book we giggled at, Where Do I come From? Of course, the librarian knew what we were up to, but both parties pretended not to know.

What Is Old Becomes New

The Shell Lake High School library in the 1990’s, now there was an odd place. Void of natural light and adjacent to the cafeteria, it emanated a certain musk. Sitting nearest to the part of the old school that was recently demolished, it was adrift in its own secondhand mess. There was no place to hide in this library. I still think of a book I would seek out whilst the friend-set did their thing. It held illustrations of a future space, one with mega-bots and machines of war. I know not what the scope of the manuscript was, but the bots were something of Pacific Rim and of perplexing realism. This library held quiet while the jr. high dances raged next door, the closest it ever got to adventure.

The old library gave way to a new one that was rich in display and resource. This room had windows high above golden oak shelves, guarded by reading tables study rooms. How many hours did I and the boys rattle off scores and NBA standings? Always praying for my Charlotte Hornets to make run to the finals. Alas:| What else do you do in winter in Wisconsin. We were the first class to put that room and that school through the full four years, it stood well and carries on.

Similarly, in college I first visited a drab and dimly lit library that would hold my sweetheart books. Rather than lug a book around, I’d leave it on the shelf, risking torment should someone check it out before I returned. Cider House Rules among others, I had the chance to read before we, too, got regaled with a new age work-station. A library to combat the blues, complete with a $200K glass chandelier that welcomed you to the cavernous spaces throughout. 1,000 places to read a book? Must have been 100 terminals for desktops and another 100 study spaces. Acres and acres of books, rows and rows of encyclopedias; I could copy anything I had enough change for. I had but one year in this illustrious space before graduation took me and went on the road.

In my travels before NYC, I had the pleasure of finding the most ragged parts of Minnesota. Somewhere therein I had the good fortune of visiting the Grand Rapids Area Library. What a treat of public funds. Clear lines, spacious room, generous light and computers to match. The limits! Do you remember the Limits Corps of the early internet? I’d gladly pay it if it meant access to those windows, that view of the spawning point of the Mississippi River. What a treat.

The New York Public Library and Beyond

The libraries of NYC run the gamut of tired, old, impressive and brutish. Lincoln Center houses a performing arts library of some esteem. I spent hours chasing stories within stage plays I thought could re-light the fires. I searched and read and prowled those stacks every chance I was on borrowed time in midtown. The only part I was wrong about was finding that old story to ignite the fervor of the current groundlings. That story does not yet exist on the shelves, we must write it and put it there.

My 'hometown' Astoria library was a joke of a bad carpet and used computer terminals. Off hours in the outer borough’s libraries are all you get if you get them at all. The major branches get all the love from both budgets and patrons alike; there is no world in which this gets completely repaired. We have only to acknowledge the fact and move forward.

Then I found the Rose. My god, what a palace for improvement. Just when you think the world is a sad, wanton place, a soul walks up steps to be greeted by lions. Patience and Fortitude, and the greatness of the world of literature lies begging you to enter. Enter I did. Pulled up the marble stairs by something unseen, I found what millions before me found. A glorious beam of light known as the Rose Reading Room.

Nowhere have I surveyed has such regal, yet common charm. The oversized tables stretching to fill the room give a certain element of trust as their stable legs hold the hopes of thousands of aspiring New Yorkers. One needs not be a writer to patronize this palace of wonderment. One only needs a want to better themselves. A quick respite, a breath to find the true course of your life. The power port may not work, nor will the lamp. The snoring gentlewoman to the right will wake soon and head back to Jamaica Bay. For now, you are one, you are the same. You are racing against time to find the answers just like she is. For this moment, you are doing it together.

I thought I'd seen the best the worlds of Library had to offer, then I moved to western Massachusetts and was able to take in the grandeur of their adroit systems of exchange. The buildings are old, in much need of repair. Some we should just build anew. Keep the old ones as guides to the past, relics to be admired but not continually restored. Still, the Clapp, the Jones, the Forbes these are the statuesque monuments to communal words, to the free exchange of ideas, to the understanding that through togetherness we progress.

The entrances could use some fortifying, the hallways are failing, stairways need to be replaced. Does this sound familiar? Everywhere you find a library, you find community. This is all they do. This is all they claim to be. You want to change the world? Support your local library.