Transcriber: Emma Gon Reviewer: Anna Sobota
A hundred years ago,
Max Weber, the sociologist, had a warning for us all,
“Be aware”, he said,
“of the coming Iron Cage of rationality”,
a world in which we become increasingly calculated
and controlled in our interactions.
The support that libraries have in our communities shows
that we profoundly believe in a much richer model:
a culture that values diversity, imagination and exploration.
Andrew Carnegie understood this in the 1880s.
One of the richest men of his age, Carnegie,
donated tens of millions of his dollars
to building 2000 public libraries across the country,
many of which still exist today.
Carnegie believed that public libraries were a powerful force,
instruments for personal growth and change,
social necessities as vital as police, fire stations,
hospitals and public schools.
I personally cannot remember a time clearly before I was reading.
But there was some disconnect in my brain when it came to writing.
Reading came naturally, writing was a struggle.
I could not seem to line up the letters correctly to form words.
For instance, the word peacock
might cause a clear image in my mind
of the bird in our neighbor’s garden.
It was a feeling of summer, delight joy,
it wasn’t the dry formation of letters on a page.
When I arrived at school, my problems really started to happen.
As I read so well,
my teachers interpreted my struggle with symbols and letters as behavioral,
and I was labeled as lazy and very rebellious.
In the 1950s, no one had heard of
nor would they have been able, to diagnose dyslexia.
As I flailed around my self-esteem crashed,
my mind came up with new and different quirks.
I couldn’t tell left from right,
I couldn't read a clock or a calendar.
I had trouble remembering simple words and sometimes names would evade me.
I grew more inward and silent.
And, lo and behold, I started to live up to the labels that I was given.
Reading was my escape.
I delighted in the books that I chose.
They helped me make sense of a dark and sometimes mystifying world.
Libraries were my place,
a lifeline and a refuge.
In libraries, I could solve weighty problems with world leaders.
I could live the life of Anne Boleyn or Jane Eyre.
I could visit the Antarctic or the planet Uranus.
The possibilities were endless.
Books and reading gave me
a sense of our shared inner world.
They gave me hope and resilience in my difficult school years.
Thank you to Winnie the Pooh,
Piglet and Tigger for teaching me love and compassion.
Wind in the Willows for the importance of friends
and sometimes have to get along with difficult neighbors.
Dr. Seuss for how mumble jumble words
can also be great poetry.
Fast forward through the years and I was the children’s librarian in Kremmling,
which is a town north of Silverthorne.
It was a time when “Harry Potter”,
“Lord of the Rings” and his dark materials first arrived on the scene
and people's imaginations were on fire.
I was tall, grey-haired and spoke with a marked English accent.
It was no surprise to anybody
that I was obviously Gandalf’s better half
and the witch in the library.
If you’re given a role, use it.
So, as a librarian, I would watch the doors open every day
and the world would walk in and I would see lives blossom and change.
Families and children would come to preschool story hour
and form friendship bonds that would last through high school and beyond.
Children would gallop down to the library
after school to check out more books
and share their latest read with the librarian.
The library was also a quiet place
where everyone was welcome to use the internet, study
and children had a safe place to be if their parents were late home from work.
Social isolation and lack of resources
is a real problem for many, many families.
The library is unique in that it offers the resources,
the tools, the information and the inspiration.
The rest is pure alchemy.
When COVID hit our mountain town as everywhere,
life as we know it closed down
and those easy social interactions that happened in the library,
the grocery store, at concerts and local events
came to an abrupt halt as everyone self-isolated.
The libraries in Colorado did not stop for a moment,
we rolled up our sleeves and changed our operations rapidly to meet this new need.
We moved from offering programs and services in our buildings to online.
We encouraged people to download e-books, audio books, to learn a language online.
Money was tight for many and we gave them downloadable movies.
Parents were homeschooling
and we gave them quality educational resources,
STEM activities, reading support and courses for adults and children.
Accessibility and convenience are important,
but they do not tell all the human needs.
Libraries are unique in that they are a meeting place where neighbors,
friends and community can show up and be in whatever way they choose.
In Summit County, we worked hard
to maintain
these vital social connections.
We would ring up our patrons and my heart broke open
when I heard that sometimes we were the only connection
that they had had with another human in a week.
There evolved a very vigorous online local community of library users
who would meet in book groups, preschool story hours, summer reading programs,
crafting groups and the famous trivia competition,
which met weekly and became more and more competitive.
In fact, it carried on after the COVID lifted,
because people loved it so much.
So, I think Carnegie would have been very pleased to see
how his libraries stepped up at this difficult time
and help their communities out.
High in the mountains of Colorado here in Summit County,
we are planning for the future.
We are currently engaged in an ambitious building project for our libraries.
In 2015 we built in Breckenridge, a beautiful new library
with the support of the county, the town of Breckenridge,
enthusiastic locals, non-profits and other organizations
on the site of the old 1909 high school and gymnasium.
It really is an amazing blend
of that turn of the century architectural vision
with 21st century vision and needs.
In Silverthorne and Frisco,
we are engaged in and enlarging and expanding our two libraries,
so there will be more meeting rooms, places to study,
places to read quietly or meet with friends.
There will be outdoor spaces and windows
that frame the beauty of our natural environment,
our mountaintops and streams.
Unlike Weber, who sees our future
as a narrowing stream of constraints,
my hope for the future
is that we can lean into and embrace our differences.
Personal growth, creativity and great writing happen
when we accept our uniqueness.
My dyslexia retreated when I relaxed
and accepted the quirkiness of my brain,
and I laughed sometimes when it will re-emerge
in all its old force and fury, and surprised me.
Maya Angelou said,
“My mission in life is not merely to survive,
but to thrive;
and to do so with some passion, some compassion,
some humor, and some style.”
To make this mission a possibility for us all,
we need the magic of libraries.
(Applause)