Many, many years ago I went to school in Minnesota in a one room country school, Bean Lake District # 71; it no longer exists. One teacher who taught all 8 grades, a coal burning stove, outdoor “facilities”, and a library. Now, no one today would call what we had a library. The table, a 4 x 8 sheet of ply-board setting on four wooden crates in the corner, took up most of the room, there were no chairs, A piano, which no one could play, and three small book cases all but filled the room leaving a narrow aisle just right for standing or sitting cross-legged on the floor. The glass enclosed case contained 2 set of encyclopedias which we were not allowed to use. Another held extra text books reserved for students’ use; the third contained a few books we could actually read, some of them quite good. I read my first Dr Seuss book there, I also (please don’t tell) frequently, quietly opened the book case and read the forbidden encyclopedias.
Contrast that to today’s libraries! Wow! Step into a modern library (I am partial to Brentwood’s) and you will be awed! At least I have always been. I think of every library as another room in my house, filled with all the places I would love to visit, all the lives I would like to share, and all the friends I could ever meet. I am uncomfortable without books and like to have them near me. If you look at my shelves you will find old and new books, some I should have thrown out many years ago. But when I give one away I miss it, just like I would miss a good friend if I gave him away. That’s unthinkable!!
Many years ago Horace Mann (1796-1859) said: “A house without books is like a room without windows. No man has a right to bring up children without surrounding them with books….” Children learn to read being in the presence of books.
I would go even further and say every village, town and city has a responsibility to all its citizens to have a library. Libraries are not just for kids, they serve all the people; and all who use it are better citizens because of the time they spend there!
I would like to close with a quote from Kurt Vonnegut: So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.
— Kurt VONNEGUT [In These Times, 8/6/2004]