Libraries aren’t just about borrowing books; they offer a sense of community
Throughout my life, my visits to the library have been relatively transactional. I chose books as a child, then CDs as a teenager and took them home to obsess over for a limited period of time. I returned it and started the process again. I stopped until one day.
As a freelancer, in recent years I’ve come to think of the library as a place where I can grab my laptop and do the same things I do at home; just with air conditioning and more people around me to motivate myself to productivity.
I knew there was more to it than that, but I never really found myself needing everything I could find and do at the library. I suppose this could be a sign of luck or privilege; It covers a range of “more” supports available in libraries. Help navigate complex technology or forms in a language you don’t speak. Meet face to face with a helpful social worker. All kinds of problems are solved in our city libraries.
I don’t always open email newsletters from Yarra Libraries, but when they sent out a newsletter on December 1st – the first day of summer on paper and one of the unseasonably cool days we’ve had in Melbourne – with the subject line “Keep calm and be creative”, I laughed a little as I scrolled through the page. He described the importance of air-conditioned spaces “for older adults, children, those with poor insulation, and people who have no place to call home,” and noted that some facilities would remain open afterward “to offer the community a safe place to stay.” This was more than just a place to sit and send emails.
Announced events included a screening of an Arabic film, a lecture on digitizing photographs, a session where new English speakers could hone their skills, and book events for writers and readers. In the middle of the list was news of a sewing club. With a growing pile of stuff I needed to fix and couldn’t do after selling my old clunky sewing machine while moving house, I signed up and clocked out on a Monday morning.
The librarian greeted me when I arrived and told me she was taking care of the regular sewing club owner who was ill. “This is my first time here, so all I know is you!” I reassured him.
I was the only newbie; the other three sewers were regulars. They attended classes to make their own tote bags, came eager to learn new skills, and collected family members’ repairs to have something to do when they arrived. Any assumptions that I would sit in a chair at a machine to complete my tasks and go home were immediately put to rest.
The regulars all knew each other and wanted to get to know me, too. I didn’t have time to feel like a meddler; They immediately welcomed me.
For all her claims to be his replacement, the librarian was intelligent and talented. He took apart the back of the machine with a screwdriver to find and repair anything that was preventing it from working smoothly. After hearing that I had a difficult mending job to do—one that had to fit over a visible part of the skirt and couldn’t be hidden properly—he set up a projector screen at the front of the room and showed us the library’s books on the Japanese mending technique called sashiko.
“We can’t teach you how to do that, but we have books that can teach you that,” he told us.
When I went out to get a drink, I found librarians helping families fill out arduous bureaucratic paperwork and obtain reference books for research. My “book/book” view of these places has been completely wrong for a very long time.
The next night, over dinner with a friend, I mentioned that an old movie was coming up at the cinema. “But you can watch it at home, too,” he said. I could wear those buttons again at home. I can sit at home and write my articles. While we have all kinds of convenience in our homes and phones, it takes effort to go out and do this somewhere else. But it can be worth it, especially when the doors to doing so are open to all of us.
I was thinking about mending a zipper and patching some frayed areas when I got off my butt and headed to the library. What I found was a new community.
