The Public Library: Antidote to Everyday American Banality

http://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/01/the-public-library-antidote-to-everyday-american-banality/
Date Written:  2019-04-01
Publisher:  CounterPunch
Year Published:  2019
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX23635

A celebration of the local library that includes conversations with librarians and patrons.

Abstract: 
--

Excerpt:

In the Gilded Age of the 21st-century, the public library does what no other institution can do: socialize, homogenize and Americanize the masses. The further away from Washington, D.C. and Wall Street, and especially in California, the more the library helps to educate the illiterate, the immigrant and the underprivileged who seek to survive in an increasingly polarized society divided along lines defined by ethnicity, gender and class. While the public library isn't an institution by and for the working class, it certain can and does help working class families in dozens of ways. Indeed, there's a widespread belief that libraries in California are the best social entities that government has to offer its citizens....

I recently spent a week roaming around local libraries, talking to librarians, readers, teachers and writers. I have come away with a new appreciation for the library as a cultural institution that provides a foundation for a democratic society, even as millionaires and billionaires throw money around and aim to undermine democracy.