What Lives in Libraries
I had a dozen or more books that I needed to return to the UChicago library, so I drove over there after putting my son to bed. Late at night, after all the retail in the neighborhood has closed, most people are at home getting ready for bed. That big library building is still lit up. The university is in session for summer classes but there are hardly any students left. Fifteen minutes before closing, I nearly have the place to myself.
This concept of the ’third place’ gets thrown around sometimes in American settings: a place outside of home (the first place) and work or school (second place) that has some significance for communal life, where people can gather and form a culture outside of family or professional functions. Libraries are one type of third place I’ve known for most of my life. In my case I don’t know if they’ve mostly been about community; certainly they have been that at times, but what might be even harder to find than a gathering spot in the US right now is a place that’s devoted to quiet reflection, with a sense of possibility. A place where exploration can be invisible (or not), and needn’t be tracked or justified to anyone. When has the country ever needed a site like that more?
I don’t know what the fate of libraries will be–even in the near future. I doubt they’re getting more funding this year than they had last year. Large-scale storage of paper volumes is getting harder to justify. Private research libraries like UChicago’s are now coasting off the investments made in a different era.
Maybe, because I’ve spent so much time in libraries, I can’t imagine a world without them. If you’re an intellectual, or a creative person, a lot of what you do with your time and energy can’t be visualized. Most days, there is no “product” of your work. And when there is one, it seems inscrutable or insubstantial to most people. But look at this place, what it gives to those who think and dream: cathedral proportions, unapologetic seriousness, open doors long after the day is supposed to close down. Here, I find so many things I didn’t know I believed–until I saw them realized in a place I could go.