Photo by Seven Shooter on Unsplash
September 2024
Everything Old
Libraries remain essential part of our communities
by Corbin Crable
September is National Library Card Sign-Up Month
September is National Library Card Sign-Up Month, and if you’re a lifelong reader like me, you know there’s no better feeling than getting settled down and started on a new story to inspire your imagination.
I was that kid who, every week in elementary school, would accompany his class to the school library and browse the stacks for a new book or two in which to lose myself. And when those Scholastic Book Fairs rolled into town? Hoo, boy, I was in hog heaven, taking my allowance to school and coming home with a book or two in hand.
As I got older, I enjoyed venturing out to our local library. I felt like such a “big kid” when I finally got my library card. It felt like a pass to magic and adventure. I loved walking into the library, soaking in the silence (except for the sound of the librarian pushing her cart of books across the floor). The smell of all of those old books was a comforting one, the feeling matched in intensity only by the feeling of excitement when I found a new tale to enjoy – or even an old tale, tried and true, that I had read dozens of times (hello, “Charlotte’s Web”!).
Libraries take on even greater importance
Today, libraries take on even greater importance when we view them as bastions for free thought and places where the battle against censorship rages every day. In recent years, they’ve been caught in the crosshairs of social and political upheaval. Read any news article or watch any news program these days, and you’re sure to come across at least one story about a book being pulled from shelves for one reason or another.
And yet, in spite of our changing social and political landscapes, libraries exist with the same missions as they always have.
“Across party lines and across the political spectrum,” writes Emily Drabinski, president of the American Library Association, in the ALA’s 2024 ‘State of America’s Libraries,’ “the vast majority of people love their libraries for the ordinary and extraordinary work we do each day: connecting people to reading and resources, building businesses and communities, expanding literacy across the lifespan, and making great Saturday afternoons.”
Creating lifelong readers
Libraries remain entrenched in the ever-important work of creating lifelong readers like me (and hopefully you, too); offering classes to enrich our lives and open our mind up to new skills, knowledge, and vocations; and acting as a center of our community, bringing people together in their quest to learn. It’s a tough mission, especially in this, the age of the Internet, with its myriad distractions. A 2023 survey from the National Endowment for the Arts found that only 53% of adults say they have read for pleasure in the past year – the lowest number since the survey was first disseminated in 1982.
Still, survey respondents thankfully seem to see the value in their local library, with 65% of respondents saying the closure of their local library branch would significantly harm their community. So, even though some folks might not use their library as often as others, they tend to view it as a critical component of their community’s makeup.
And so it is – but then again, you likely already knew that. This and every month, let’s remember to support this institution that makes up the nucleus of our community. After all, its story is far from over.