My father and his eight siblings grew up in the kind of poverty that Americans don’t like to talk about unless a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina strikes, and then the conversation only lasts as long as the news cycle. His family squatted in shacks. The children scavenged for food. They put cardboard over empty windowpanes so the cold wouldn’t kill them.
Books did not exist here. When you grow up starving, you cannot point with pride to a book you’ve just spent six hours reading. Picking cotton, sewing flour bags into clothes — those were the skills my father grew up appreciating.
And yet, when he noticed that I, his youngest daughter, showed an interest in reading, he took me to the local Jonesboro library and told me that I could read any book in the building so long as I promised to talk to him about it if I read something I didn’t understand. I think this is the greatest gift my father ever gave me.
Encyclopedia Brown Takes the Case; The Secret of the Old Clock; Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret; Flowers in the Attic; Gone With the Wind. These are the books that defined my childhood. They thrilled me. They made me feel like I wasn’t alone in the world. They told me about my history. They made me want to be a writer. Though he was not a reader himself, my father understood that reading is not just an escape. It is access to a better way of life.
For nearly 85% of kids living in rural America, the only place they have access to technology or books outside the schoolroom is at their public library. For many inner-city kids, the only safe haven they have to study or do homework is the public library. For adults, many companies only accept job applications filed over the internet. Mechanics and other professionals need access to costly manuals that are free at their local library. Sixty-five per cent of entrepreneurs use the library to research opening their own business. And, believe it or not, there are still children whose highlight of the week is that trip to the library. It was true when I was a kid and it’s doubly true now: the library is the beating heart of any community.
Although it is widely agreed that libraries add tremendous value to communities, libraries have long been underfunded, understaffed, and under-supported by local governments, in both the US and the UK. Which is why, in 2010, I started the Save the Libraries foundation to raise money for libraries in need. Several years ago, I was at a Library Association conference, and half the librarians I was used to seeing were unable to attend because of budget cuts, or because they had been forced into retirement or simply fired. Back home, hours were being cut, branches were being closed, budgets were being decimated. Some systems could not even afford to buy books. Can you imagine that: libraries who cannot afford to buy new books? This wasn’t just in other parts of the country – it happened to my own system. Their acquisition budget was cut by two thirds. As a kid who spent every Saturday in the library, I felt like someone had stabbed me in the heart.
When I started the foundation, which has earned more than $300,000 (£206,000) for libraries, it was immediately clear that the funds we raise need to go to UK as well as US libraries, because the weakening library system is not a uniquely American problem; it also plagues the UK. According to the organisation Stand Up For Libraries, more than 100 UK libraries closed last year alone, and nearly 450 have gone in the past five years. Another 149 are currently under threat.
All of this is why it is so important to join Speak Up for Libraries at 10am on 9 February, as they lobby for libraries at Central Hall Westminster in London. Campaigners will call on the UK government to take action in order to protect and rebuild its library system. Please go.