“My library is an archive of longings,” Susan Sontag wrote in her journal more than 40 years ago. It’s one of those lines that people like me see in a book — her son, David Rieff, published it in a collection of her journals — and write down in a notebook of their own as something to remember, to think about. Because all libraries are archives of longing: places to imagine, to investigate, to escape.
They’re where the information is. They’re where people can go to dream, to plan, to think and above all to learn. Librarians make that possible.
John Maher and Elisabeth Egan, colleagues on The New York Times Book Review, interviewed dozens of them this summer, asking about their jobs and lives and discussing what they provide and need to survive. Here’s what they told us. What does it mean to be a librarian in the United States right now? Librarians are defenders of democracy.
We’re defenders of the freedom to read. We’re protectors of patron privacy. Libraries are one of the few places in this surveillance economy that are not trying to collect and sell your data to come and use our facilities. — Ed Garcia, Cranston, R.
I., Cranston Public Library We’re a caring profession. We’re supposed to be helping people, not advocating. — Tamika Barnes, Atlanta, Georgia State University Library What challenges do libraries face today? Restricted access to information — whether that is book bans, or if people can’t get to a certain location, or if they’re immigrants or new Americans and they don’t even know exactly what a public library is. — Joan Firestein, Baltimore County, Md., Baltimore County Public Library The loudest voices in the room seem to be people that don’t like libraries. They’re the ones showing up to board meetings complaining about the books they don’t like.
Some libraries are being defunded entirely. I don’t think most communities really want that. I don’t even think most conservative communities want that.
I see a lot of home-school families with conservative backgrounds, and they’re using the library every day. — Holly Eberle, Algonquin, Ill., Algonquin Area Public Library District What were your most memorable interactions with people? A gentleman who had retired needed to go back to work. He did not have email, didn’t have a phone but knew he wanted to be a part-time cart pusher at Walmart because he could walk there and it would supplement his Social Security income. He came in, and we worked with him one day a week for about an hour.
He would come back every now and again to check his email and then he stopped showing up. I went three, four months not knowing what happened to him. Then I went to Walmart one day and saw him pushing carts.
He called me over and said, Hey, I got the job. — Conrrado Saldivar, Natrona, Wyo., Natrona County Library What would librarians do with $10,000 more in their budgets? I could completely overhaul my nonfiction section. When I started 10 years ago, a paperback was $4.99 or $5.99, and they are $9.99 or $10.99 now. Picture book hardcovers used to be $14 or $15, and now they’re at least $19 or $20.
My budget has stayed stagnant or gone down, and book prices have only gone up. We still have Pluto books — Pluto doesn’t even exist as a planet anymore! With $10,000, I could buy every brand-new book that year. $10,000 feels like the moon. — Shawna Dees, Roseville, Minn., Roseville Area Schools What do they wish we knew about running a library? We are, in fact, educators. We don’t just sit behind the desk.
We do more than just check out books. We educate the whole person. And we don’t know all the answers, but we can show you where to find the answers. — Lee Sa Mc Ghee, Milwaukee, Clarke Street School, Milwaukee Public Schools There’s so much more they told our reporters.
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Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing