The only thing you absolutely have to know is the location of the library.” Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
October is Canadian Library Month, when libraries and their partners raise awareness of the vital role libraries play in society. They’re free, welcoming, comprehensive and open to all. This year’s theme: Libraries for Life.
Once upon a time libraries, sometimes called repositories of knowledge, were a place to store and lend books. Over the years libraries have evolved into multipurpose hubs that not only house and lend a variety of forms of information and entertainment but also provide educational classes, cultural events, access to computers, and more. Libraries are a safe community destination where “people can be alone together with other people.” They’re also a refuge for the disadvantaged in times of need, during heat domes for instance. After researching The Public (2018), director Emilio Estevez declares “libraries are the places where class stratification is erased. The middle class and millionaires are working [or reading in my case] the next table [or chair] over from people experiencing extreme poverty or homelessness.”
Freedom to Read Week (Canada) and Banned Books Week (U.S.) celebrate the freedom to inquire, to express, and to read. The weeks also spotlight current and historical attempts to censor books. According to a new PEN America study, book banning in public schools jumped by 33% during the 2022-2023 school year. (Unsurprisingly, Florida overtook Texas as the state with the highest number of titles pulled off the shelves.) A bookmobile tour begun in New York and ending in Texas puts accessibility at the forefront of its agenda.
Appallingly, inexplicably, the list of Top 100 Most Banned and Challenged Books: 2010-2019 in libraries and schools includes lauded titles such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Brave New World, Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Kite Runner and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
According to Wendy Wright, chair of the Canadian Federation of Library Associations’ Intellectual Freedom Committee, “A truly great library has something in it to offend everyone. Librarians will defend maintaining collections of books across a spectrum of views — even those of the people currently fighting against libraries.”
Let’s use public libraries, not just this month but every month, to ensure we — and succeeding generations — enjoy libraries for life. •
Deborah Etsten says
Yes! Love me a good library!! And isn’t it telling that there are so many great books with library in the title. For ex: Midnight Library, The Librarianist and my fave, The Library Book.
Pam McPhail says
Like you, Deborah, I adore The Library Book. And add to your list The Personal Librarian and The Library of Legends (both historical fiction) plus The Woman in the Library (mystery).
Christine says
I love my library! I remember the bookmobile that parked at Safeway, the building of the beautiful new library, summer reading charts… Now all my books I can read while in Mexico!
Thanks Pam😻
Pam McPhail says
I had an opportunity to tour your impressive new library, Chris. Another positive of libraries: they’re often architectural marvels.
Grant McPhail says
The internet is replacing libraries. Much greater volume, much less truth.
Pam McPhail says
Sad but true, Grant.
Tracy Ware says
I second everything that Pam and her respondents have said about the importance of libraries, in all their forms. Alice Munro would agree, since she is a lifelong patron of libraries, from her childhood in Wingham to her early adult years in Vancouver and Victoria to her later life back in Ontario. She has often thanked Reg Thompson, of the Huron County Library, for his help with the details of local history that she has get right. But the debt is paid in the stories themselves. Reflecting her time at Munro’s Books in Victoria, she more often depicts booksellers than librarians, but these fields share a love of books. “Carried Away” (from “Open Secrets”) is the rare case of a librarian / protagonist, and also a great example of Munro’s complex later fiction, spanning as it does several decades. Louisa’s work as the town librarian acquaints her with Arthur Doud, the son of the Founder of the Doud Organ Factory. Struck by his poised manner after a grisly accident at the factory, Louisa says, “in a peculiarly quivering, shamed, and determined voice, ‘I think what you did–I think that was a remarkable thing to do.'” Reader, she marries him.
Pam McPhail says
Thanks for enticing me to reread Alice Munro, Tracy. Decades ago “Lives of Girls and Women” affected me deeply. I’m curious to know how my mature mind will respond to these interlinked coming-of-age stories.
Marilyn RB says
Thank you for your post! Libraries are fundamental to a flourishing democracy and safe havens for the imagination.
Pam McPhail says
Well said, Marilyn.