Libraries organize chaos. So wrote Nancy Kalikow Maxwell in her book, Sacred Stacks: The Higher Purpose of Libraries. And lately, or maybe always, there is plenty of chaos to organize. Maxwell wants us to appreciate the art and science of information taxonomies — the classification of worlds of knowledge, historical and current — and the various modes of distribution required by all that knowledge.
The public library’s role in the community is to be a clearinghouse for free, well-organized, accessible, and verifiable information and programs about all kinds of things, including issues that people disagree strongly about. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, there persists a kind of soft-focus public sentimentality about libraries that can obscure their importance as a safe community space for troubling exchanges in troubled times.
The traditional view of public libraries would have us think more soothing thoughts: When is preschool story time? I want to learn to crochet. Why does a large pinch of salt in the pastry I’m making power the sweetness? This lingering perception about libraries prompts a question: how much taxpayer money is this really worth? What is the value of this institution?
But think of this: In the library, you can find databases to buttress your knowledge of power grabs by frisky politicians. Cluster bombs wipe out a city, and your library’s freely accessible news sources follow the fury, the people, the rubble, the loss. A library program highlights facts and digs deep into the causes of coastal erosion and the perils of climate change. We seek support in grief, in food production, in housing. We gather for love of the arts, the need for solidarity. We yearn for connection, information, and meaning.
The current administration in Washington has placed the entire staff of the Institute of Museums and Library Services on administrative leave, and many have been permanently fired. That independent agency distributed $266 million in grants and research funding last year. Without staff to run those programs, that funding will likely disappear. Although most public library funding in our communities comes from state and local sources, the loss of federal support will mean the loss of some critical services upon which users of small rural libraries rely.
Why is this happening? What are the conflicts of interest? Proximal community needs should not fall victim to distal political mandates. The Massachusetts House Ways and Means Committee has voted to level-fund library line items (the good news), but the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners pleads the need for small increases for our libraries to preserve, for example, statutory library services and staff.
Such is the power of libraries, though information exchange, content, and accessibility seem subject now to increasing fiscal and cultural peril. We struggle to preserve First Amendment protections for published materials and speech. Tensions rise in the presence of increasing intrusions on the freedoms that are the substance of our civil society. We should expect our public libraries to continue as centers of knowledge, open to all points of view, adhering to a higher purpose. The values we hold for free access to such an abundance of services and beauty demand that we keep these sacred places safe from censorship, safe from unrest, safe for staff and patrons, and safe from the whims and vagaries of political opportunism.
Robin A. Robinson is chair of the Wellfleet Public Library Board of Trustees.
