I felt kind of guilty about my last column, in which I
criticized the Gilroy branch library for sending me home
unwittingly with Christian fiction.
I felt kind of guilty about my last column, in which I criticized the Gilroy branch library for sending me home unwittingly with Christian fiction. After all, librarians are some of my favorite peeps in the world. My mom worked as a reference librarian in our small library in Vermont, and I grew up in that facility, touring its secret crannies and back hallways and attics (the library was formerly the grand mansion of a Kellogg of cereal fame).
The library was one of the most comfortable spots for me. There I looked at books displayed fetchingly on their easel-like tables in the Children’s Room. I spent hours doing puppet shows in the puppet theater with other kids. I read through an entire shelf of orange-bound books that were biographies of important women: the foundation for knowing the importance of women’s contribution to world history and my life-long feminism.
I was excited each year for the summer reading club and its prizes for participating, some of which I still remember. Approximately 100 years later, I still know my library card number: 777. I think they gave me such a special number since my mom worked there, but maybe it was happenstance.
Upstairs, in the adult area I watched grown-ups reading, researching, learning. It was an incredible role model for me to see that knowledge is attractive. On the third floor, there was a wonderful attic area to explore, with a cut-out balcony to spy on the patrons below, and an art gallery. I remember seeing my first nude photograph there. It expanded my mind.
Thank you, Kellogg-Hubbard Library of Montpelier, Vermont. And thank you, Gilroy Branch Library of Gilroy, California. Your librarians are incredibly kind. My children have loved the stimulation of baby story hour with songs and scarves and stories, and then story hour for older kids with a bigger emphasis on the books. We regularly visit and check out hordes of books, and we enjoy the incredible benevolent institution that is a library. This year, my eldest evinced great excitement at the idea of the summer reading club, and my heart swelled.
We’re so lucky to have libraries. We shouldn’t take them for granted. The concept of a huge place where you can just select what you want to read, and take it away for free, is actually fairly extraordinary. Most American libraries arose in the 18th century as subscription libraries, where you’d pay a nominal fee for the right to belong and take books.
In the late 1800s, millionaire philanthropist Andrew Carnegie decided his mission was to build libraries. In 50 years, he created over 2,500 libraries in the U.S. and overseas! He wisely asked communities to help with funding, so it wasn’t just a pure gift from the skies, but one that the residents felt some ownership towards.
In fact, Gilroy’s original library (today’s museum on Fifth Street) is a Carnegie gift, started with a grant of $10,000 on March 12, 1906. The library was ready for business in 1910.
Carnegie’s design permitted browsing through the stacks, a key element of enjoying the process of selecting books. Previously, most libraries required patrons to request a book to be retrieved from closed stacks – so you had to know ahead of time what you wanted.
In 1966, the Sixth Street building was built since the original library had begun to feel cramped. It’s kind of cool to know memories of that space are now historic, since that building is no longer with us. I always enjoyed how the wall near the magazine racks opened to the green space between the library and City Hall. I hope the library took steps to memorialize the building with photos and oral histories.
Everyone I know eagerly awaits the opening of the new building next Spring on that building’s site. Two stories of light-filled reading, with a special Children’s Area, community meeting space, and an enclosed patio and oh my god! It’s going to be awesome.
In the meantime, the temporary quarters on Monterey Street are cramped but still vital. I guess being crowded is a problem a library likes to have. It’s heartening that in this era of iPads and Tivo’s and Wii’s, a collection of books can still pull in a bunch of fans.
