Libraries are a vital part of any community. So it is always disheartening to hear when in some communities, libraries are closing left to right. A crisis, unfortunately, that is currently happening in the UK.
However, the closing of libraries doesn’t diminish the hope and the fight to keep them open. Just read this opinion piece I recently read from the Guardian newspaper. Author, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, wrote this piece in response to a tweet, stating that the world does not need libraries anymore:
I feel emotional almost to the point of tears about libraries. In wanting to examine why, it occurred to me that for many of us library lovers, a library is an extension of home – a big, cosy living room into which everyone is invited. And just as the interior architecture of a childhood home becomes enmeshed with the interior architecture of our minds – that painting of the fox that you always felt was watching you, or that ornament that seemed fixed, as if glued, to the mantelpiece, or that intricate pattern on the god-awful rug – so does the library’s.”
People still do not understand that even though that reading is a widely accessible activity, it is still a privilege that everyone cannot afford to do, but a privilege everyone needs. And libraries offer us that opportunity absolutely for free. We need to stop trashing the purpose of public libraries and start supporting them more. That is the only way we can progress forward.
To read more articles discussing this issue, click on the providing links below:
No one needs libraries any more? What rubbish
The UK no longer has a national public library system
Libraries are as relevant as ever
Angry librarian goes on brutal Twitter rant after journalist suggests closing all libraries
Discover more from cup of tea with that book, please
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This post feels surreal to me. Like Hunger Games surreal. Or maybe more like Fahrenheit 451 surreal.
When I hear that some people have never set foot in a library, I’m dumbfounded. How is this possible?? And yet, I realize that these people do exist. I just wish those people would not have the power to make decisions for those of us who do use and love our public library.