Lessons from the Library - Week 5

Tall blue hair, sparkly sunglasses, a bright red oversized purse and a book to share.  Who is it?  The local children's librarian out to invite students to the summer reading program at the public library.   Can you picture yourself visiting ten schools, forty classes, and twelve daycares in such a get-up?  Can you imagine yourself acting silly so kids will have good feelings about the library, about reading, and about learning?

If you could say yes to any of those you could be a children's librarian. 

The lesson I learned in such work was you have to be brave, get on the same level as the youngest audience member and bring the fun with you. Not bad lessons for a lot of life.

Lessons from the Library - Week 4

Wikipedia Commons - Christopher Ziemnowicz
Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Libraries need friends.  Not simply those who joyfully and with out thought use its resources but the friends with pockets deep enough to provide for the ongoing existence and expansion of library services.  In the late 20th century some of those friends were Bill and Melinda gates.  At the end of the 19th and the early 20th centuries, it was steel mogul Andrew Carnegie.

Thousands of communities applied for and received funds from Carnegie's foundation to establish libraries.  "Few towns that requested a grant and agreed to his terms were refused. When the last grant was made in 1919, there were 3,500 libraries in the United States, nearly half of them built with construction grants paid by Carnegie " (Wikipedia).  The communities had to meet certain criteria though discovered through a set of questions. Communities had to demonstrate the need for a public library;

provide the building site;annually provide ten percent of the cost of the library's construction to support its operation; and, promise to provide free service to all.

Today, there are a dwindling number of them remaining and fewer still in operation as community libraries. 

A surprising number of these palaces to learning were torn down - some in the 1930's and 1950's- long before urban renewal scarred the landscape of so many cities.  Many communities still go begging  for needed support, improvements, and development in the face of rising costs for print and nonbook resources.  Library booksales are a crucial resource maker in far too many communities. 

What I have learned from libraries is they need friends with deep pockets - but more importantly - a vision and appreication of the impact learning and libraries can make in a community. In a life.  What I have learned is that so often we cut the budget, make learning go begging and forget the importance of literacy in our towns.

Just goes to show we can destroy - or ignore -  with greater ease than we can build.

Thanks Mr. Carnegie, Mr. Gates and all the others who supported the library in their communities.  A new century dawns, I wonder who the new supporters of learning, reading, literacy, and the imagination will be?

Library with Secrets and Mysteries

Some of the favorite reading materials in most libraries are mystery and detective books.  So it is only appropriate that libraries themselves should be the focus of a few mysteries and maybe a secret or two.

Willard Library

Does a ghost wander the library after hours?  The subject of documentaries, investigations, and online camera survelliance the Willard Library in Evansville, Indiana.

Eureka Springs Carnegie Library

Secret tunnels?  A mysteries link to the historic Crescent Hotel? This library and the community have been explored by "Underground Eureka" and documented the area but have yet to find such a tunnel. A delightful little urban tale and one which makes me, for one, want to go back to see things for myself.

Lessons from the Library - Week 3

Many think of women's emancipation issues as something from the roaring 20's but examples of the ways society functioned are frighteningly closer to the present than many suppose.

It was 1974 in the area known as Walnut Valley in east central Kansas.  The oil based community of El Dorado had a history of many notables, their gifts to the community and their legacy.    The original library in town had been a a small "Free Library" in 1897 in left over space; then in 1912 a grant from Carnegie provided a formal space with a goal of education and improvement of the community. In the mid-century however donations from a trustee built the "Bradford Memorial Library."

I was a young wife with one small in a stroller and one on the way.  Not much else to do in town and fairly new with few friends, I thought using the library would be a good thing. It was easy to get to when I took the morning walk and would provide storybooks for the toddler's bed time and books for mom.  My husband's job meant he was often gone in the evenings for meetings as well. Something to read would help pass the time.  I was six months pregnant so passing time was something I was going to be doing a lot of in coming months.

It was a lovely spring day when I pushed the stroller into the library and began looking around. I always like to 'get the lay of the land' before doing things so I looked at the new book deplays, the children's area, and the reference area.  I saw there were large glass windows looking out over tall leafy trees, yellow daffodils were popping up and it was really a very nice looking modern library.

I finally approached the desk to fill out an application and then stood in line to get my card.  The man at the counter looked it over and said, "You will need to get your husband's signature on this before we can issue you a card."

I have always imagined my stare must have been glassy-eyed. I metaphorically slapped the side of my head to clear my hearing. "What?"

The sentence was the same the second time around. I looked at him: " I am a married woman, mother of one child and pregnant with another. Why do I need my husband's approval to get a card?"

"We have had some problems..." he replied vaguely. " We have to know someone is going to be responsible for the books. In case they are damaged, uh, or lost."

"I am going to be responsible. Me."

"A wife is not considered...It has to be your husband..."

So, I took my form home and got my husband to sign it.  I remember how he laughed about that....for awhile anyway.

The lesson learned was that discrimination is painful, shocking, and embarrassing.  I am so glad my son was too young to realize why his mother was crying as she pushed back home on that lovely spring morning.  If I was not responsible as a wife, a mother, and soon to be mother...how did I rate as a woman?  Sometimes it is a mother who ends up providing her children with all they have in the way of values, hope, history, and dreams.  This lessons harks back to a period in our society where women where often viewed as little more than the children they bore. They were eternal children who had to be tended, watched over, and kept in their place.

   

The library is still there and continues to provide excellent library services to its community...now 21st century style.

http://skyways.lib.ks.us/library/bradford/library_information.htm
http://www.360eldorado.com/Government/BradfordMemorialLibrary.html

Knowing Where the Books Are Buried

Someone asked what that title meant and I proceeded to explain a bit of history.

From the Book of Kells

Vikings plundered Ireland over several centuries and as a result many of the monks charged with preserving and copying the religious texts began to hide the works.  The covers where sometimes gold or jewel encrusted to signify the great sanctity of the volumes and of recovered they nearly always came minus those added features.  The insides, however, were the real jewels as brilliant colors and fine designs preserved symbols of Celtic history merged with Christian theology and history along with the sacred texts.

One particular story from the early 11th century details how such a raid had occurred but the books were safe because they had been hidden under the sod. This means they might have been buried (and other texts and archaeological findings do infer that) in the ground or hidden in the peat moss roof.

So, image you are on the wind swept coast of Ireland as the single goes up that the dreaded dragon headed ships approached.  The people scurrying to hide themselves and their precious items of food, weapons, and, in the case of the monks, their books and bibles.

Now, image the raid being very successful and the villagers and the monks killed or taken for slaves.  Now, an empty ghost village, there would be known left who knew where the knowledge had been hidden, who had no clue where to recover the manuscripts, the Bible, the weapons, or the food.

How sweet must have been the sound, in the chaos of such a catastrophe and such devastating loss, of the words, "I know where the books are buried..."

Lessons From the Library - Week 2

In the town where I lived as a child the library was like a distant and inaccessible temple to some exotic god. My parents had been raised in places where libraries were rare and only a few people had more than a book or two in their homes. They had been raised in times where there was a severe awareness of class and status in America. Libraries, like many other public services, were seen as something for the upper class. They were clubs for the privileged, the educated, and the socially elite. 

I had seen the old Carnegie building in town and it was pointed out the way someone pointed out an office building or some other place of no import to our life. 

In grade school, the library was a shelf in each class and I enjoyed that.  I read through most of the shelves.  It was in 3rd grade that I learned our class was going on a field trip to the library.  We walked the four blocks to the library and entered the library by climbing the many stone steps to the glass fronted doors between two Greek columns.  As we entered, our steps echoing loudly in the vaulted room filled with skyscraper height bookshelves of glossy oak.  It was like church and our voices lowered to whispers.  All the impressions I had picked up from people seemed justified. This place was special. Was I worthy? Would they run us out for not being smart enough? For not having good clothes?  For not coming from the rich houses in town? As I expected, we were not allowed to linger in those rarefied realms but were led to a small staircase and descended into the 'children's room'.  

That space featured a couple of large windows looking out over the street, bright glossy shelves, and walls a soft yellow.  It was like school with colorful pictures, toys, and small chairs and tables.  Strange words "fiction", "check-out" and other alien terms begged understanding.  Along the shelves, were some familiar books from school but so many, many others.  The only place to buy books in town was a tiny corner shelf in the office supply downtown. This place held more books than the whole office supply store could hold.

I learned that day that anyone - anyone - could get a library card.  A library was the great equalizer of social groups. The walls of class, social status, education crumbled at my feet.   I did not realize this at that time, but would later. At that time, with a look of a sugar fiend lost in a candy factory, I just carefully stepped over that rubble in my shiny Mary Jane's with the short ruffled socks.  

I was on my way - all because of a library.

Lessons from the Library - Week 1 (52 Week Project)

A new year blooms and so do ideas.  This marks the start of a special journey as I reflect on the lessons - good and bad - learned from the library.  This begins a new series, hopefully an entry on this topic each week for 52 weeks.  Living and loving libraries I have come to realize they have taught me many things over the years. So I hope you will join me in the laughter, the embarrassment, the tears, and the frustrations of life in the stacks.  Along the way, I hope to articulate the meaning and value of the library as both a place and an idea.  In focusing on the experiences, I will be interrupting a lot of life, people, and our crazy world.

Lesson One: Imagination Is a Must

The vast activity room was crammed with children from 2 years old trying desparately to crawl out of their mother's arms to 5 year olds doing everything but listening to their teacher's instructions. I counted nearly 75 present.  I glanced at the clock. Show time!

It was a story time at the library but with groups this large the intimate, small, close kind of story reading event was hard to achieve.  So, to pull attention into the moment, we launched into a little ditty I had created  "Books, books, books; that's what I need!..."  It worked off energy, focused the children and adults, and as I closed it down with a whispered..."books, books, books; that's what I need..." we were ready to begin.

I opened the first book and away we flew into the world of imagination as I read from the selections that week designed to not only provide a literary experience but to promote the wonderful collection of books and resources available for families in the public library.  Books were read, stories told, participation from the audience encouraged to create a memorable book centered experience to showcase the value of reading, learning and the library.

The vast activty room was crammed....but now they were intently listening and imagining along with the story line. It was plain on their faces as they listened, now still and absorbed in the story.  They were seeing the pictures in the book when shown but more importantly they were also seeing it in their heads -  a permanent addition to the gallery in their head.   They little knight's sword would be recreated from brooms and bathroom plungers.  The little princess' veil from sheets, towels, or a purloined nightgown.  The dragon's heavy steps recreated with care and great energy in bedrooms and playrooms and front yards.

People need the imagination as they need air and water.  It must be cared for, fed, and inspired to develop just as a child is cared for so that it can provide the innovation, ingenuity, and creativity for later life success.  It does not stop at childhood; many of those teachers and parents were also lost in the images their own minds were creating...traveling into a wonderful...magical...and necessary place where dreams and reality mingle to strengthen one another.

See you next week for another "Lessons Learned in the Library" with Marilyn A. Hudson