When I was a girl, I knew libraries were an imaginative and fun place. As I grew older, I was able to channel so much of my middle school angst through the various novels the librarians suggested to me, a girl with long bangs trying to cover up the explosion of zits across her forehead. I could hardly manage the crowded school hallways without some sort of taunt or jeer, but I felt less alone when I returned home with my book and curled on the couch and read until dinnertime. In college, I mostly used the library for good but sometimes my antics would catch up to me, searching for a roommate working with her group in a study cubby and concocting an outlandish excuse to why she should abandon their group and join me for mischief. Other times, I was an insufferable studious student, often rejecting football rivalry weekends to drive 90 minutes from my small campus to Indiana University’s gorgeous and huge library where I could envision myself as a real writer instead of another sophomore sloshing beer in the stands and cheering for the home team.
When I made my way west, I did so without computer, so I used the Flathead County library to conduct job searches and write long, mostly breathless email missives to friends back home. Many years later when I became a mother, I spent at least one day a week at the downtown Kalispell branch, attending baby story time and meeting new moms.
Even while on vacation, I’m drawn to libraries and there’s a cache of photos of me posing with the marble lion sculptures in front of the New York Public Library. When I return to northern Michigan each summer with my children, we make many visits to the cozy community library where the librarians remember us, and my kids partake in their summer programs from learning how to draw superheroes from a professional graphic artist traveling through the area or meeting the frogs who call the bays and bogs of the area home. Libraries continue to play a major role in my life and in the communities they serve.
It’s National Library Week, so I’m happy to share these recollections of when I’ve found kinship among other book lovers or relief when I was able to use a computer for free and apply for a job. I’ve checked out movies, CDs, and even conducted interviews with authors from quiet spots in libraries across the state. I don’t think I would have survived early motherhood without story time or summer programming for my kids. Millions of Americans use their libraries on a regular basis, whether that’s to access digital e-books, make friends in the maker space, or find a safe, free, and communal place to learn, explore, and connect. I’ve come to rely on libraries throughout my life and I marvel at how our county public library continues to adapt to meet the needs of our community.
Many of our bedrock public institutions are under attack from the current administration and in this chaotic time of uncertainty, it’s helpful to celebrate the good that libraries do for each of communities whether that’s a small community library in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, or here in the Flathead Valley. What would our lives look like if the public couldn’t access books or use a computer to apply for a job? I can’t imagine what life would be for my kids if they didn’t have the opportunity to learn the words to “Zoom, Zoom, Zoom” or spend a rainy afternoon paging through books, letting their curiosity set the pace.
Truthfully, it’s not a world I want to imagine. We need public libraries.