18 love letters to libraries
and one confession
The following post is part of a Seed Pod collaboration about libraries. Seed Pods are a SmallStack community project designed to help smaller publications lift each other up by publishing and cross-promoting around a common theme. We’re helping each other plant the seeds for growth!
I have an embarrassing confession to make: today’s letter was conceived in a moment of minor panic. The SmallStack Seed Pods project launches today, and I’m leading it. 😬 Over the next three weeks, we’ve invited everyone in the SmallStack community to write about libraries, share their posts in a common thread, and like/comment/lift up each other. That includes you, too! Check out the Seed Pods thread (officially live at 7am PDT) to join in.
I wasn’t planning to write anything until September 4 — plenty of time to get through the first couple days and dream up a short letter about libraries. Far too late, I realized that we needed a post today, first thing, to be an example for others to follow.
If there’s one thing I learned from my content marketing days, it’s the power of a good ol’ fashioned quotes round-up.* I sent out a Note asking people what they love most about libraries, and I got 17 wonderful responses back. As I began to lay them out below, I realized what I actually had: a collection of love letters to libraries.
And isn’t that auspicious? I’m delighted to share them with you below, plus a love letter of my own.
*If you want a mini-marketing lesson: the quotes round-up is an excellent way to gain a lot of visibility for a small amount of work. You benefit because it’s super fast to put together. The people you quote benefit because you’re giving them free promotion (get their permission first!). And you all get to enjoy increased visibility because you’re all cross-promoting the round-up to each others’ audiences.
My elementary school library is one of the first places I ever loved. I can still transport myself there instantly. The smell of old books. The hushed whispers. The crisp turning of pages. The satisfying shhhhkt of the stamp that marked a book as mine… at least for the next two weeks.
When I held a new book in my hands, I sensed that I was poised between two selves — the me who hadn’t read the story, who hadn’t yet learned and grown and felt the words within those pages… and the me who had. That second self was an alien creature, incomprehensible as Greek. What could it possibly be like to become her? Then, alchemy! as each word slowly introduced me to myself, invited me to wonder who I might become next.
Robin, the author
My main respect for libraries, besides all the other cool stuff everyone already mentioned, is the fact that they are the last ‘third place’ in society, the last public spot protected from the elements where you are allowed to exist in dignity without spending money. You don’t need to worry if you need to buy a meal or get another drink in order to keep occupying a table, you can get a bunch of services you might otherwise not have access to — listening to music, watching or renting movies, using a computer, copier or printer, using a decent restroom without needing to buy a beverage. It’s a place where you don’t have to pay in order to be treated decently, and that is a huge thing in my mind.
After strolling into the local public library, which was built in the brutalist style and resembles a bunker, to pick up a hold, another book half a shelf over—one I’ve never heard of by a new-to-me writer—grabs my attention. Suddenly, I’m in the stacks looking for another copy of the book, or something on the same topic, or another title by the same author… I love the serendipity of libraries!
Libraries make me feel abundant, especially when I’m in scarcity mode. 📚
Growing up, the world always felt chaotically noisy and overwhelming to me. Libraries were a sanctuary — a place where slow, quiet, contemplation was the norm and I was in my element.
My daughter in law recently sent photos of the grand-babies sitting crosslegged and listening intently to a book being read at a kids library event.
It brought up such feelings of nostalgia!
I remember the constant chaos of raising a toddler, and how the library was always a place of peace and wholesome joy for us to escape to. 💗 📚
The library is a place for slowing down and for quiet solitude. It’s a place of almost infinite worlds and doors to escape through.
I’ll run my eyes along hundreds and thousands of book spines. Every so often, one will call to me for some mysterious reason.
I’ll pull it out, crack open the cover and explore its pages. It might be brand new and untouched. Perhaps I’ll be its first reader? Or, its softened pages and the messy ladder of date stamps inside its cover may indicate it has been appreciated time and time again.
And what a thrill that I can walk out of the building with a tote bag slung over my shoulder, filled with writing to explore. All for free! (Of course, that’s if I remember to return the books on time).
Where else in society do we have this sort of communal and trust-based resource?
, from For the love of libraries
I am in the place I love to write. Five minutes ago I was cycling through rush hour traffic on London’s Euston Road. Now, apart from the odd sniff or click, I am in silence. The silence of Humanities Reading Room 1 at the British Library. I switch on the reading lamp and open my laptop …
Some of my earliest and fondest memories are of the “treasure hunt” that is visiting the library as a child. For a few months my 6-year-old self was the sole patron trading off the library’s two copies of “Daisy Head Mayzie” by Dr. Seuss, returning my copy only to turn around and grab the other one from the shelf!
As I got older the “treasure hunt” tended toward buying books for my own shelf, but the library is even better than the bookstore because I don’t have to spend any money or finesse more space in my ever-overflowing home bookshelf!!
While I’ve been in some impressive Harry Potter-esque libraries that flow over you as a haven for learning — attached pic is the University of Washington — a core memory from my childhood is the children’s section in my modest neighborhood library 2 blocks walk from my Elementary School. I’d go every day after school and I would be so thrilled to read series like the Chronicles of Narnia and Freddy the Pig knowing once I was done I could find the shelf and check the next one out. It was glorious. Don't even get me started on the bins of comic books.
I love the idea of being in a room full of possible connections. I can connect to people who aren't even from this century. They can be from a different country or culture, but I can still find a commonality, a shared idea, an emotion we both felt, or an experience we both had, all hidden amongst the pages. All It takes is opening a book. It makes me feel seen and less alone. Being in a library makes you feel like your surrounded by very wise companions ready to share stories and what it is to be human. 🥰
Stepping into a Library is going on an adventure. All the world is in front of you. It’s literally the world at your fingertips where one can explore, culture, people, music, food, history, geography... A library mesmerizes my soul and imagination.
Lots of my earliest memories are at the library. That thought makes me smile. What about the library makes me happy? Of course, the options: rows and rows of them. But more than that — it’s the people. Everyone is so distracted, together. Lost, even. Happy, together. Distracted and happy. Happily distracted. Where else can you find that? And the library lets you take books with you — for free! — and take those distractions, those beautiful distractions out the door with you.
If I had to name one constant thread that runs through my life, I would have to say it is libraries. In fact, I am currently writing this piece while sitting in the slightly chilly reading room of a library in London...
As a creature of habit, I usually come and sit in the same reading room and more or less at the same desk, which, over the years, has had the pleasant side effect of enabling me to meet other regulars of the library, people from different academic backgrounds, whom I now call my friends.
, from To All the Libraries in my Life, Past and Present
I like the silence in libraries, not because I like silence, but because it feels like we’re all baby chicks waiting in the nest for the parents to come back with food. And then, when we go outside again, the parent is here and we all scream.
You know how it is when a kid comes into the library and acts cute in the aisles? Then you see the kid going crazy and waving their book around right outside the library later. Like that. The contrast is so fun.
There's just something about finding THE book on the shelf, then seeing other books that are similar in nature as if they're friends gathered.
Then I notice other people doing the same thing, kindred spirits on similar quests. Future friends?
My first library card was a light blue piece of cardboard with rounded corners and a folded metal chip off-center on the right, the words “Johnson County Public Library” in faint black ink across one side. It was the most powerful thing I’d ever had as a child.
Libraries show us that everything is possible.
Want to see more posts from this Seed Pod or join in on the fun? Head over to our thread to learn more!
Swoon. I love a library. I just went to the one by us for the first time. It’s quite literally 2 blocks away and I’ve lived here for almost 6 years. I’m horrified by myself. But we’ve gone every weekend we’ve been home since we first went. First time I only got books for A. As we’re walking home, he looked up at me and said, “but you didn’t get any.” When I finally did get my hands on a few, my gosh. What a feeling. I can sense I have a whole post on this. Seed pod, here I come. 😉
Sixty years ago when I was young I remember walking many blocks with my mother to go to our local library. Getting a library card was a rite of passage, it meant you could read and would be responsible for the borrowing and returning of books. Bringing back a book late incurred a nominal charge, but it was a deterrent. Getting a library card was like getting a watch or driver's license. You were ready for the upgrade, in a sense. Timing makes things special. There was a card inside each borrowed book that you had to sign. Sometimes you would check out a book more than once and could see your written name amongst the list of others...often other kids you knew. One of my happiest memories is packing the many books on my sled to bring them home more easily. Libraries have always been a place of adventure and librarians have always been kind and helpful. Community sharing at it's best!