Because I moved so often as a child–nine places but thirteen residences–I’m apt to say I’m not really “from” anywhere. But that’s probably not totally accurate. Though the locations changed and we often lived in multiple quarters as an Army family, it was not completely peripatetic. Instead, I had a childhood with deep roots in church, school, and library. Wherever we lived, those were my true “home” places. And though I grew up in a book-filled house, I never had my fill, so going to the library was a necessity. Each week, I’d go to the public library to get the next haul, and then, come home and place the new pile next to the yellow, over-stuffed chair in my bedroom to devour in the coming week.
It’s National Library Week this week (April 6-12), so I’ve been thinking particularly about how the library anchored my young life. And the critical role of librarians who nurtured my nerdy, exuberant self with such wisdom and kindness.
Like Dr. Banner, our school librarian when I was in first and second grade on a base in South Korea. It was somehow the height of hilarity and incongruity among us kids that this slight young woman shared her name with the Hulk (those Gen-X among you might now start humming the theme song to the cartoon series of the Hulk: “Doc Bruce Banner/Belted by gamma rays/Turned into the Hulk/Ain’t he unglamo-rays!). We made up our own version in her honor, which we loved to sing at her with almost no provocation. She always took it in the spirit intended–and laughed along with us, flexing her muscles and posing in various Hulk-y stances. She was her own kind of superhero to us.
I saw her more often than most because I was so often done with my work quickly, so off to the library I would trot. Dr. Banner and I would have long conversations about books–and after a while, somehow it was decided that I should spend part of each week reading to the kindergarteners. Together we would pick out picture books to present. It boggles my mind a little now to think this seemed like a good idea to people, but I still remember striding (well, as much as tiny little 2nd grade me could stride) alone across the campus with two enormous picture books under my arm, prepared to read to the “little kids.” I had the confidence of Dr. Banner behind me.
Or Miss Elder, when I lived in southern Oklahoma. Carriage Hills Elementary was a so-called “open classroom” school with only blackboards on rollers as room dividers. The library went down the middle of the building, centered between the 1-3 grades on one side and the 4-6 grades on the other. Miss Elder and I became frequent conversation partners because, here, too, as in Korea, I would complete my work before the others. Even though my mother by this point asked me every day as I left the house if I had my book with me, I was known to sometimes lapse into chatting with those around me. Boy or girl, it didn’t matter–I learned early to be able to find suitable topics with anyone I met. (Those of you who know me are, I’m sure, shocked by this admission.) So, my teacher would often say, “would you like to head to the library now?” and of course, I was eager to go. In the library with Miss Elder, we could talk about all the incredible books I was reading from the past, like Little Women, or those coming out at the time by writers such as Katherine Paterson. (I often think about how delighted Miss Elder would be to know that I grew up to be friends with Katherine, but it felt like we were all already friends in the 4th grade).
I can imagine they both had a lot of work to do to delay it in spending time with me. But in my memories, they never seemed bothered or too busy. In fact, they always seemed quite happy to see me–I always felt welcomed as someone they were glad to talk to, as someone who they seemed to believe had interesting things to say. That’s quite a gift.
My own brother has had a long career as what I like to think of as a servant-librarian. (I think most librarians could adopt that title, to be honest). As an academic librarian, he sacrificially spends his time helping faculty and students alike with all manner of assistance. He stays late, he develops materials, he works intensively with people one-on-one to get them what they need. He even redesigned his reference desk so that he can sit alongside people, instead of across from them, emphasizing, he told me, that they are co-laborers, that he is in it with them. When I was speaking at a high school recently, I wasn’t surprised when I met a teacher who excitedly told me that she knew my brother, claiming that he was “the only reason she passed college.” Though I’m sure she was being modest about her own contributions, I can imagine he was a big factor, encouraging her, aiding her searches, helping hone her ideas. Librarians really do make a huge difference.
Librarians are powerful–and therefore threatening–because they know how to find and share information, they know how to empower others to do the same, and they know how formidable access to knowledge and imagination is. Every authoritarian regime understands that, too.
It’s why this week I’m determined to fight for books and libraries and librarians. The cost of their loss is the very loss of democracy. We know they are under attack, everywhere from the Naval Academy to the Haskell Free Library and Opera House and in the gutting of The Institute of Museum and Library Services. And that’s only a small accounting of the assault.
History has already told us what happens when access to books is restricted. We need only look at a picture of the “Empty Library” memorial in Berlin, the site of the burning of 20,000 books in 1933. And we must not forget that the crowd that participated in this obliteration included educated people, professors and students.
It is not an obvious monument–empty shelves buried under the pavement, visible only through a glass window. It becomes more obvious at night, when a light from below shines out. Turns out, we need what books can give us most when it is darkest–and then, instead, they are gone.
But that’s not all that is at risk. It’s why we need to protect our own superheroes, the librarians, the keepers of the books. They steward something more than text.
Using the words of the poet Heinrich Heine, the plaque next to the memorial says it best when it warns:
“Das war ein Vorspiel nur,
dort wo man Bücher verbrennt,
verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.”
(“This was but a prelude;
where they burn books,
they ultimately burn people”).
Cover Image by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash
Photo of Memorial to the Nazi-era book Burnings at the Bebelplatz in Berlin, Germany. Photo credit: Stefan Kemmerling via Wikipedia.
23 Responses
Wonderful. Thank you. Bushwick Branch, Brooklyn Public Library, every two weeks, as much for my mom as us.
Grand Rapids Public Library every two weeks. Saturday morning with my Aunt Sal who was a middle school history teacher. Then off to Herpolsheimer’s for lunch. My favs were biographies, autobiographies, and all manner of history. You remind us today to give thanks for the keeper of the books, our librarians.
An important tribute to librarians and libraries in this time of turmoil. Thank you, Jennifer.
As someone who hung out in a library for nearly four decades, I thank you.
I was eight. I buckled my two-year-old brother David in his seat on the back of my bike and rode down 111th St. to take him to story time at the local branch of the Chicago Public library.
Thank you, Cathleen. Every semester for as long as I was student at Roseland Christian School on 104th Street, the same woman librarian from the Public Library on near Palmer Park visited out school and spent most of the day speaking to Grades 1-9 about books. I can still see her in my memory. And thanks for that reminder.
As soon as I could read, my dad would walk us to our church library on Saturday nights. Coming home I would have my first book almost read by the time my mother put rollers in my hair.
As soon as I could read, my dad would walk us to our church library on Saturday nights. Coming home I would have my first book almost read by the time my mother put rollers in my hair to get ready for Sunday.
This piece evokes weekly treks to the Bellflower Public Library many years ago. I’d head home with a grocery bag of books and classical LPs to play on the family hi-fi, return and repeat. After years as a classroom teacher, I became a school librarian and public librarian to share the joy of reading with countless kids. Thanks for this wonderful account and the replies it’s garnering
My first job was as a “page” at the GR Public Library children’s room under the supervision of the wonderful Miss Burgess, who gently urged my mom at the right time that I could graduate to the adult rooms. My daughter now is one of those fabulous academic librarians who has written about the necessity of their servant leadership. Thank you!
Thank you! My earliest memories are going downtown to the library in Grand Rapids with my parents. I still use the library every week today! Thank you for reminding us how important libraries and librarians are!
During my wonder years, K-9th grade, living in Allegan, MI, I dare say I spent more time in the public library—a beautiful example of a Carnegie library, circa 1920—than I did in church, at First Baptist, a block away across the town square. I recall the librarian advising me, a 7th grader, that I could read the James Bond novels on site, but that I couldn’t check them out without a parent’s permission. Read them all in a summer, on site; confirmed later via a friend’s birthday party that the book was indeed better than the movie (Thunderball).
As soon as possible, during the postlude on Sunday mornings, my friends and I would race to the tiny library under the stairs to the basement to see if there were any new or returned copies of “The Adventures of the Sugar Creek Gang.” The librarian at Second Englewood CRC in Chicago was Miss Ann, Ann De Vries, sister to brother Peter. “The Blood Of The Lamb” was published in 1961, about the time the church fled the city. Ann shared her brother’s sense of humor, but I doubt that any of her brother’s novels found rest in either location. Especially the one set in Englewood.
Ann always promised to let me check out a Peter De Vries novel “in a plain brown wrapper”. She never did, even though she had a signed first edition of every one.
Rejoicing in the library of comments that have understandably emerged in response to Holberg’s evocative piece. Joining in from the bookmobile stop in Kalamazoo, Michigan – where I was always awed by the auto/biography section – that so so many folks had lived before, had stories to tell. Yes, indeed, to all the ways that libraries & librarians promote cross-generational conversation.
“… where I get to read books and talk about them for a living.” Yes!
“And gladly wolde he[I] lerne [read] and gladly teche.” Yes, including Chaucer.
Thanks for this, Jennifer. It is for you -and was for me – a calling and a blessing.
My siblings and I went every two weeks to the NDG Library for Boys and Girls in Montreal- four long blocks from our house. We carried the books (8 each for three kids) in a large backpack that we put in an old shopping cart. My sister, as the oldest, was in charge of the expedition. Supposedly, the books would be checked out for the summer, but in our family of voracious readers, we had them all read and returned two weeks later for a new set. I remember many blissful hours in our sunny back porch, stretched out with a book in my hand…
Living on a farm, attending a one-room school, and having only a few books in our home, I loved going to town on Saturdays for our weekly visit to the library to check out books for the week. What a gift the library was for me.
Ahhh–the memories! Church libraries with books like The Sugar Creek Gang (like Dave Larsen mentioned) and then those rather tame romances of Grace Livingston Hill. I guess they were tame enough to be included in the stacks at 3rd CRC in Lynden, WA.
And then there was the second floor library in downtown Lynden, WA. Often after Saturday afternoon catechism class I would head to the library, climb the stairs and wander through that amazing room. One section that stands out in my memory is a whole row of orange hardcover books, biographies of all kinds of wonderful strangers that became friends as I learned about them. I wonder how many would be banned today by those who think they are protecting our children by hiding the truth from them.
Great childhood memories. I hope my grandchildren can experience the same.
Thank you, Kentwood Library!
Every Saturday afternoon we would take our two young boys and find lots of books to check out, and then head to grandma’s house for pie! Good memories.
Fun to hear your memories, Jennifer. We are blessed.
Ripon, CA public library and First Christian Reformed Church, Ripon basement library formed the ideas that made me who I am today. At 74 I proudly carry 8 public library cards from CA to MT in my handbag, Jennifer, I have had such fun reading this column and all the responses following it. I’ve found several old names from my past whom I haven’t heard/seen in years. Hello Emily Brink; we shared years on the Board of Pubs together (surely a board for avid readers).
I too love libraries . They are under attack now. The picture of the library in Berlin is a frightening reminder of what happened in Germany and what is happening now in this country .
My mother worked very hard to start a library in my small hometown in NW Iowa. They started with mostly donated books and volunteer workers in a small room in the community building. When I was back in town for a class reunion a few years back, I was able to visit the beautiful library building that they have now. My mom would have been thrilled!