Tomgram: Ward, on How the Public Library Became Heartbreak Hotel
- From: J Flenner <varney@[redacted]>
- Subject: Tomgram: Ward, on How the Public Library Became Heartbreak Hotel
- Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2007 12:37:57 -0400
[]
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=180836
April 1, 2007 | TomDispatch.com
Tomgram: Ward, How the Public Library Became Heartbreak Hotel
Back in the 1950s, when every domestic scandal and nightmare, political
or familial, wasn't the subject of a television show, the library was my
peephole into the mysteries of the adult universe. The key question,
when it came to interpreting the world back then, was this: Would the
librarian who ruled over the juvenile section free you to enter the pay
dirt of the rest of the library? Mine did. As a friend of mine, who
arrived in this country as an immigrant at age 11, used to say of her
library years, "I started with A." So did I. What an essential
democratic institution the public library is.
Of course, today, the condition of America's public libraries is, at
best, wildly variable
<http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6328049.html>. Some urban
libraries of just the sort I used to haunt in my childhood have recently
been losing out in the race for scarce tax dollars. They often face cuts
in their hours, while their systems close branches and offer fewer
services; others are carving out new roles for themselves as on-line
information providers, advisers, and bustling cultural centers. So,
while the bold architecture of the new main library in downtown Seattle
has become a popular tourist attraction, libraries throughout the
Katrina-ravaged Gulf Coast struggle to rebuild or just hang on.
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As Chip Ward, a Tomdispatch regular who just retired as the assistant
director of the Salt Lake City Public Library System, makes clear below,
public libraries have become de facto daytime shelters for the nation's
street people; while librarians are increasingly our unofficial social
workers for the homeless (and often the disturbed). It's a dirty little
secret that tells us all too much about the state of our nation today.
--Tom
What They Didn't Teach Us in Library School
The Public Library as an Asylum for the Homeless
By Chip Ward
(snip)
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