Writer Stands Up For Libraries

Dear Editor,

I’m writing in support of our Libraries, which the Trump Administration is determined to shut down. Libraries are facing budget cuts, closures and even more attacks on the kinds of books they carry. The threat to our libraries is pesonal to me, because of my life-long history with them: when I was a young child, less than 5 years old, I developed a rare and incurable lung disease. My time was given 3-5 years to live (so far, I’ve beaten the odds, despite in my 40s developing chronic heart failure, an aortic valve leak and tachycardia). I’m 61 yrs old now.

Throughout my academic history, I missed a lot of school. At 5 or 6, I started reading every book my family owned. Over the years, I read them several times over. My mom took my siblings and myself to our local library every week. I was a naturally fast reader, and by age 6, my habit was to simply check out every book in the children’s section, shelf by shelf, each week (taking out the maximum allowed). I doubled up by doing the same in my grade-school libraries. As a youngster I was surprised to find that they didn’t have the same books; more for me! 

Granted, I didn’t “love” every book I read, but I learned something from every book I read.

I cannot emphasize enough how important books were to me through my childhood: they kept me alive, literally sometimes, because anticipating the next books on more shelves to come made me want to live, especially when indescribable physical weakness and pain made me think it would be easier to just slip away.

I desperately wanted to live. I desperately wanted MORE THAN the pain from sections of my lungs slowly calcifying and near-contant 102-104-degree fevers. I wanted to have a life “OUT THERE,” but physically I just couldn’t; I was almost always bed-ridden. I wanted “what’s out there” to be real for me, and the only thing that made anything other than chronic illness and pain REAL was books. I found worlds of wonder in books. Libraries literally saved my life, especially when I was a small child at the mercy of an incurable lung disease. 

Libraries helped me all throgh grade school, and each year that passed saw me moving on to older reading sections for literature (fiction & non-fiction), biographies and history in junior high and high school (for most of my adult life, I’ve regretted that I “only” read what I liked; I should’ve read more science and math!). I kept reading shelf by shelf in my school libraries, again finding that many more books were available in the local public libraries. By the time I went to college and grad school, my reading habits were less for pleasure because of the time demanded for course-work readings, but I still managed to indulge my shelf-by-shelf local library reading pattern in the libraries where my universities were located. 

Libraries are a treasure trove: they provide books that educate, inspire and provide the greatest power of all:  understanding the ENTIRE WORLD around us. Its people, places and things COME ALIVE. I’m living proof that happens even when you cannot leave your own bed.

Today’s libraries don’t just offers books: they host many events for children and adults, often by simply providing the space for organizations to hold events. Public libraries offer language classes, computer-use classes, voter registration and so much more. They offer free Wi-Fi, job hunting help, homework support, digital access and safe spaces. People may not realize or remember that all these services make their communities better places to live. 

We The People need leaders who will boost library appreciation and promote library usage, not faux-religious  political idealogues determined to cut library funding and ban books and specific programs.

Freedom means that EACH ONE OF US can CHOOSE what books to read and what services to use. It does not mean that a FEW PEOPLE can choose what books and services are available to the rest of us.

We The People need to stand up for access to information, diverse voices and the right to read freely. Public libraries are so much more than buildings full of books, but even if that were ALL that they provided, we need our public libraries. The books on their shelves literally give us the entire world at our fingertips.

Alys Caviness-Gober

Noblesville