When I worked at our Macon County library, I saw its many uses. Library workers are a special breed that come in many stripes but what unites them is that they all consider the provision of knowledge and research materials to be an over-arching goal.
This provision naturally extends itself to a place for a mechanic to research auto parts, a young actor to learn Shakespeare or a future farmer to learn animal husbandry. It also serves as a place to facilitate anything from genealogy to finding tax forms, you name it. All in a comfortable, neutral and egalitarian environment.
The staff cleans destroyed toilets when the maintenance department has gone home for the day. They get sick when you stand too close with your cold.
I treasure librarians even more after having worked there.
When I worked there in the 2000’s, we made displays for Pride Month, for Memorial Day and all sorts of other events. Occasionally patrons would sabotage books bearing information they found threatening or that didn’t align with their values, facing the spines inward or sometimes putting books on the Confederacy on our Dr. MLK Jr. displays in January or conversely hiding copies of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.” But being librarians, we’d put things back in order.
I remember witnessing benign neglect of leashed foster children to out-and-proud abuse of toddlers (one woman slammed her boy into a hardwood chair). There was a daily arrival of parents and guardians who’d use the facility as a social space and often where cookie-cutter moms would free-range their kids while they gossiped or stared blankly at their devices.
Everyone who’s worked at the Macon County Library has witnessed parents using the library as a day care center, which is far from its intended use. In the minority were parents who actively engaged with their kids over reading material and activities provided in children services. I felt great respect for those few, tired but mighty parents (and clear-eyed grands) when most just wanted me to set their child on the provided computers so they could go off to their own, literal devices.
I wonder if it would help if our county provided those who don’t appreciate the concept of libraries with an internet lounge combo day care center. I recommend they put a steeple on top to satisfy those who want to merge church and state — maybe then, the flatlander insurgents will quit trying to mold our library in their own image.
Angela-Faye Martin lives in Macon County