Long live the librarians

Kirk Ericson | Sep 16, 20210

Series: These Times | Story 1

Banned Books Week starts at the end of September and National Librarian Day is coming up April 16, so how about we get a jump on being thankful for libraries and librarians.

A library is one of the few indoor places in this nation where you can expect to be treated fairly regardless of how much money you have or what color you are. Rich people, poor people, people without shelter, the old and the young get the same treatment at libraries.

Libraries are a testament to this nation’s egalitarian spirit.

Money will not buy you a better time in a library because libraries are not built on commerce. When you’re in a library, you’re as much a millionaire as the millionaire, and the millionaire is as much a pauper as the pauper. The poor can get exactly what the millionaire can get: books, CDs, magazines and equal treatment.

A library is fueled by an essential sense of trust. Libraries will give you something of value on the promise that you’ll return it once you’re done using it. Isn’t that an odd way to be treated? Isn’t that a far too rare means of transaction in our world?

Imagine that happening at Home Depot.

“I promise to return the rototiller when I’m done.”

“Security!”

There’s no capitalism in the library. You can’t buy or covet. There’s no advertising and no one is selling anything. It’s books, and their companions, and books promote themselves quietly, making no neon entreaties for your affection or attention.

Libraries are a haven for people without a haven. Those people can spend the day in library, sitting in a chair, safe from the weather, reading a book that interests them and no one will roust them, unless they make a commotion, in which case they’re likely to get the same boot as the millionaire who makes too much noise.

If I’m ever homeless or experiencing homelessness or I’m in a condition of housing insecurity or whatever you prefer to call it, I’ll be at the library.

There’s no din in the library. There’s no easy-listening or classic rock sounds to prevent us from being alone with our own thoughts. Silence is an honored companion at the library. Sometimes people get loud, but many loudmouths are sensitive to glares at the library.

Librarians are some of the fairest people in this land.

Librarians are in the forward trenches of the battle to protect the rights of U.S. residents to know what they want to know and to think what they want to think. At the library, you can find books, sometimes prominently displayed, that the government and right-thinking people consider seditious, and librarians will invite further condemnation from those right-thinking people by having Banned Books Week every year.

Librarians trust people with information. Librarians know books can be dangerous possessions because books make people think, but they have faith in the way information intersects with human reason.

Why don’t we think of librarians as fighting for our country? Why aren’t we asked more often to give it up for a librarian? Why don’t we thank librarians for their service to the nation at least as often as we thank politicians, soldiers and priests?

Libraries are a balm for anxiety. Being amid a collection of books encourages a quiet contemplation and a calmness no pill can replicate. You can travel through time and space and make stops at any period or place in between.

Yes. Long live the library.

Email Kirk Ericson at [email protected].