Who needs public libraries? I can find much of what I want online. I can order a book for a reader or to hear an audio version. I can do most of my genealogical searches from my laptop. I can have magazines sent to my home, rent videos on any subject for my phone or computer. I can watch demonstrations of everything from cooking to surgery without leaving my bed.
But I need the public library now more than ever. I crave the quiet. There are too few places where cell phones do not ring. I have been horrified to hear them ring at funerals and any number of settings where silence should be respected. The Kindle or a similar device does not have the majestic sense of seeing rows and rows of books; all free and available to anyone with a library card. No driver’s license or proof of income or identity is required to check out a book or a video or a CD. Just a library card. Amazing.

The lessons learned by children who visit libraries begin with the independence of choosing their own books even before they can read. Children learn about self-control and appropriate behavior by being quiet while inside the library. They learn how to respect the belongings of others by caring for books and returning them. The public library offers much more than a model for good manners. Any child who discovers what books can offer and becomes a reader for life now has unlimited potential. I am one of the lucky ones. I was taken to our neighborhood library and still fondly remember favorite books that we checked out again and again. I have even purchased a few of them for the pleasure of remembering them being read to me.
In a noisy, chaotic and uncertain world, books are solid and reliable and there is an unending supply of them available. Today. For free.

The history of our library is also the history of segregation, Carnegie grants and the WPA.