I’ve loved libraries as long as I can remember. I practically grew up in them, bringing home stacks of books from our weekly library trips when I was small, using them as a relaxing place to hang out after school and do homework with friends in high school. I knew I liked their general ethos — free knowledge and entertainment for all. But I hadn’t thought particularly deeply about how they fit into the larger social order until I picked up Eric Klinenberg’s Palaces for the People at the beginning of 2020.
That year was, of course, practically an enormous case study in the importance of community and togetherness. At the time, though, it was only January, and COVID-19 hardly on my radar, nothing but a few worrying news articles on a far away disaster. I had no idea of the new significance the ideas in the book would have for me just a few short months later.
Klinenberg’s main thesis in the book is the importance of “social infrustructure”, or “the physical places and organizations that shape the way people interact” (Klinenberg, 2018, p. 4). Particularly, he focuses on how we can use these places and organizations to build the kind of community in which people trust each other, check on each other, and support each other. Even as simply a place to gather, libraries function as pillars of social infrastructure on which we can build our communities.
Libraries have a history of providing support during emergencies, acting as distribution centers for food and emergency supplies and providing a source of wifi and power when it was scarce, in addition to performing their normal function as information hubs, which is especially critical in a crisis (Hagar, 2014). During COVID lockdowns, libraries all over stepped up to support their communities. Of course, they adapted their basic circulation services to function in the new socially-distanced normal and worked to provide coherent information about the virus amid a tide of misinformation. But they also updated their physical infrastructures to extend their wifi outside their buildings, providing access to the crucial service even when they couldn’t be open. They created storytime and craft kits for parents to take home to their children to help keep them occupied during the long hours at home. They ran virtual programs on Zoom to help keep the community connected.
If you’re used to thinking of libraries as book warehouses, some of these things might seem a bit out of scope, but connecting people to information (and other resources) they need translates to serving people in all kinds of ways. With specialized resources for immigrants, job seekers, entrepreneurs, adult learners, and more, libraries are “skill[ed] at reaching populations others miss” (Mattern, 2014). Having a place to go when you need help and don’t know where to start is incredibly useful. But Klinenberg highlights a few community programs that seem to be much less targeted to providing information. A virtual bowling league brings together people from different library branches in the spirit of friendly competition. A new mother finds a place outside her home that welcomes her and her young child, and meets others that share her situation. These parts of library service are about connecting people to each other, because the biggest resources of a community are its members.
I didn’t use the library for anything other than e-books during the COVID lockdowns. But as the long months of isolation brought the importance of community into sharp focus, I thought a lot about the tools we use to build it. Good libraries have the potential to be some of the best.
Hagar, C. (2014). The US Public Library Response to Natural Disasters: A Whole Community Approach. World Libraries, 21(1). https://worldlibraries.dom.edu/index.php/worldlib/article/view/548/472
Klinenberg, E. (2018). Palaces for the people: How social infrastructure can help fight inequality, polarization, and the decline of civic life. Broadway Books.
Mattern, S. (2014, June). Library as Infrastructure. Places Journal. https://placesjournal.org/article/library-as-infrastructure/