Love Letter to the Library – of Today

Love Letter to the Library – of Today

Have you ever read The Guardian’s delightful Love Letters to Libraries series? Famous authors and regular readers have written poignant and nostalgic reflections, and the Guardian has invited others to take part in these expressions of love.

Reading these mini-memoirs has taken me on a journey to revisit my own library encounters. In fact, pondering which library experience might inspire me to write a love letter, I began to reflect on how many times libraries have provided me with entertainment (I’m an avid lifelong reader), earnings (my first job as a library page – I hope they’ve found those books I shelved back in the mid ‘70s) and escape (to all the books I explored while I ignored the ones I needed to read).

And it circled back – years later – to entertainment again, this time for my children (story hour is a mom’s best friend, after all). But as I set out to write my own love letter, I am not looking back. In fact, I don’t think I have ever been as appreciative of a library as I am right now.

At Books@Work, we have our first library partner: the Rice Branch of the Cleveland Public Library. A beautiful building at the corner of East 116th and Shaker Boulevard, on a typical Monday at 5:30 p.m. the library is still abuzz with activity. Books splayed on tables, with people of all ages on computer terminals and around small tables, the space is a far cry from the quiet, sometimes somber, library spaces of years back. In the children’s section in particular, the librarians are actively engaged in keeping children and teenagers happy, reasonably behaved – and safe. It’s noisy, it’s hopping, but it envelops you in a sense that all this energy has the potential to yield great things.

The library is the site of a Books@Work community program, bringing parents and mentors from The Intergenerational School, a Cleveland charter school, with parents from Harvey Rice Wraparound School, a public school in the Cleveland Municipal School District, to discuss books, ideas and share their experiences.

Both schools are a stone’s throw from the library, and part of a campus that includes the Debra Ann November Early Learning Center and the Boys & Girls Club. The parents meet in the Learning Room, a cheerful glass-walled space, with a professor who guides them through a seminar that is peppered by laughter and active voices, diverse perspectives and points of view.

Funded by the Saint Luke’s Foundation, this five-month Books@Work program may be a first – an opportunity for parents of children in co-located schools to get to know each other deeply and thoughtfully. Some bring their children, who read and color in the children’s section with two high school students while their parents engage in the seminar. Unlike our typical programs that take place at work, these participants share a neighborhood – rather than an employer – with the library at its heart. As they come together to build stronger connections and relationships, the community grows in turn. The library is the natural place for these conversations and interactions.

As many nostalgically lament the loss of the libraries of yesterday , I can’t help but appreciate the impact this very library has today. Amidst a digital revolution in the way we absorb and share information, I am reminded that nothing replaces the physical presence, the face-to-face interaction and the comfort of a building that exists for an entire community to use and enjoy.

So, my love letter goes not to my childhood experiences, but to the Rice Library, for all it does right now for readers, for talkers, for internet surfers or for a group of parents who, through a shared text, reach across the walls of two schools and different life experiences to find common ground. As Books@Work continues to touch more readers in workplaces and communities, we hope to work even more closely with libraries like Rice – as the locus for our programs and as valued partners in sharing the power of reading to engage an entire community.

To which library will you write your love letter? We invite you to share your appreciations in the comment section below or directly with The Guardian.

Image: Gerard ter Borch, Woman Writing a Letter, ~1655, Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis [Public Domain], via Wikimedia Commons


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Ann Kowal Smith

Ann Kowal Smith

anksmith@thatcanbeme.org

Ann Kowal Smith is the Founder and Executive Director of Books@Work.