We love libraries — and not for the reasons you think
As a motley crew of former journalists, baristas, organizers, and freelancers, the 730 team is understandably fond of libraries. I’m personally a proud alum of a “Reading Olympics” team (really, it was a thing) and another editor on our team helps coordinate an annual Tournament of Books which coincides with the NCAA championships. In short, we’re self-identified bibliophiles.
The reason we’re so fond of these lending institutions has very little to do with our shared affinity for silent workspaces, though.
Over the past several years, libraries across the country — including our own DC Public Library (DCPL) — have started to re-examine what it means to serve as a communal repository of information. The new working model, it seems, is one which treats ‘knowledge’ itself as embedded within and nourished by community.
Here in DC, this push for community-driven, community-relevant programming has taken many by surprise. We’re now home to a public go-go music archive and a main branch library fond of basement punk shows. Our libraries hold free 3D printers and offer activists the inexpensive meeting space they need to build power.
Last Friday, I paid a visit to the MLK, Jr. main branch of the DCPL system for an event entitled “UNCENSORED.” Held as the culminating event of the library system’s Banned Books Week festivities, the event drew 500 Washingtonians to the library’s main lobby, where mixologists from some of the area’s most renowned bars — think The Columbia Room, 2 Birds 1 Stone — offered up craft cocktails as DJ’s spun nearby. Complete with coloring book pages scattered about celebrating authors whose work had been censored and a pop-up market, the event was everything you don’t imagine libraries to be: loud, crowded, musical, and boozy.
The event was obviously enjoyable, but what’s more, it helped break down boundaries of respectability so often associated with libraries. Borrowing books, using shared computers, taking a break from a hectic day, these are experiences can be shared across lines of class and social difference. While we’re too often separated from our fellow Washingtonians by structural factors, the DCPL is making meaningful attempts to hold “third space” at its library branches, building the sort of community bonds that are too often lacking here.
The thing is, events like this aren’t limited to DCPL.
Earlier this month, the District bore witness to another seismic shift in the role of libraries — though this time with the installation of the nation’s first Black and first woman Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden.
Known for using libraries she managed in Baltimore to provide support for community members during the Baltimore Uprising, condemning the censorship of Islamic reference materials after 9/11, and opposing computer filters that block porn as well as important health resources, Hayden is a champion of protecting freedom of expression and the ability of each and every person to create and access knowledge.
Growing up low-income at the turn of the century, the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie had no access to books, magazine, or reference materials. The bulk of his self-education was made possible by a wealthy patron who invited young Carnegie to read in his private study. Years later, Carnegie returned the favor — donating millions to set up free, accessible libraries in all but the tiniest of towns.
If Carnegie’s altruism paved the way for the first stage of the library’s evolution in U.S. public life, the movement to truly cement libraries as institutions of public life may well constitute the second.
At 730, we’re proud of our tripartite motto “inform. provoke. engage.” These days, it seems we’re not the only ones trying to make sense of the shifting dynamics of our cities, neighborhoods, and ways of coming to know one another.
In the months to come, we’ll continue to promote opportunities to engage in the work of fostering community knowledge — whether that’s community meetings around MLK, Jr. Library’s upcoming multi-year renovation, Knowledge Commons DC’s low-cost classes on anything and everything under the sun, or organizing meetings at your local DCPL branch.
In the end, we side with Ms. Hayden and the DCPL; standing against censorship and for spaces where community members can come together is essential if our city’s to have a vibrant, more equitable future.
