Three things made me write about libraries:
- A recent trip to Taipei where we visited a couple of museums. We love exploring any city through its museums, bookshops and libraries.
- This lovely book I’m reading called What You’re Looking For Is In The Library.
- Thinking about my last job. One of the greatest privileges I had in my last job was to get acquainted with the warm, intelligent, inspiring and incredible people who work at National Library Board of Singapore.
Libraries are a key part of the social infrastructure of any city. I’ve had the pleasure of living in three cities with incredibly progressive and inclusive libraries - Singapore, London and New York (I even follow the British Library on instagram, and I don’t follow anyone)
Gautam and I love libraries, bookshops and museums. While in Taipei, we also went to the lovely National Taiwan Museum which has an excellent Natural history branch. It was filled with school kids. Maya and I checked out the Taipei Astronomical Museum. One of the coolest things in the museum is a “Cosmic Adventure”. It’s exactly what it sounds like. You get into a pod, you go on a space exploration journey throughout the solar system and even discover aliens. It was so epic that we got on the “adventure” twice! It was one of the highlights of our trip.
These made me think about my own level of access to museums and libraries growing up. Any talk about access is immediately linked back to privilege. Anything to do with access and privilege links back to caste if you are Indian (more on this on another day as I educate myself and articulate my thoughts better)
In Mysore, I went to exactly one museum - the Visvesvaraya Science Museum in Bangalore. I was also lucky enough to have access to three libraries. The CFTRI School library, which was reasonably well stocked and even had a librarian. The Central Library in Mysore (centrally funded by the Indian Govt but getting a membership was hard and we used our Aunt’s Father’s library cards) and a private lending library. My mother also had access to a Kannada lending library nearby.
My mom, sister and I read a lot. We read all the time. The minute my sister, Hema, started working, she bought us books.
My cousins in Bangalore fared a bit better than we did. They even had access to the British library which was better stocked than any other local lending library.
On the other hand, Gautam grew up in Rourkela in Orissa (a relatively underdeveloped state). He didn’t have access to any sort of library - neither public nor at school. He never read for pleasure until he got to college. Once every two years there was a book fair in town, and his folks would buy him one book - and never fiction. Hard earned and rarely deployed money could only be spent on ‘useful’ things like encyclopedias and dictionaries. Compared to him, my cousins and I had unimaginable access, and hence privilege.
Most Indian kids grow up the way Gautam did and don’t have access to libraries. If you’re curious about the state of libraries in India, India Spend put out this informative piece of research on the kind of library access available in India. The stats paint a tattered picture.
Libraries democratize access to books - hence the freedom to imagine for children and teenagers. Without books, especially fiction, it’s hard to imagine all the possibilities of what life can be. Fiction allows you to fill in the colour. Libraries provide access to this wonderful world especially in early childhood to everyone. Without them, only those who can afford to buy books can imagine a world beyond what exists.
Childhood is a lonely experience. Reading fiction makes it less lonely. It allows children to reimagine the possibility of what life can be. It allows them to see themselves as many many things, having adventures, being heroes, being important and being in control. It also enables them to imagine a life and a world beyond what they see everyday. Without this, childhood can be excruciatingly lonely and even suffocating.
Libraries also provide critical social infrastructure and teach us important skills about how to and where to explore when you need information. The book I’m reading is simple, inspiring and warm. It’s a book about how a trip to the library provides the impetus to make some significant changes in their life.
I think this happens in real life. Libraries are inclusive and inspiring spaces. A trip to the library might let you find something that you had forgotten you were interested in, spark a long lost love for a certain genre or even give you ideas on what to watch next on Netflix.
Public libraries everywhere need our support, so support your local library by all means. Just don’t forget it might support you as well, in a way you never considered before.
Book recommendations will follow soon.