The commitment to inclusion is so powerful that many decisions about the library hinge on whether or not a particular choice would cause a subset of the public to feel uninvited.” The radical nature of libraries can go unnoticed because libraries are so interwoven into civic life, as Orleans book documents. It becomes harder all the time to think of places that welcome everyone and don’t charge any money for that warm embrace. And it’s true, as Susan Orleans writes in The Library Book: “The publicness of the public library is an increasingly rare commodity. There’s a tweet that has circulated for a few years (apologies for not attributing it) that essentially states that, were libraries invented today, they would be labeled a communist plot. It’s not terribly novel to argue that libraries, far from being fading relics of the print age, are more important than ever as free, welcoming community and information centers.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |