A key action area of the American Library Association is that of lifelong or “continuous” learning. Learning does not end with childhood  or secondary education  or higher education  or job training. As the world continues to evolve around us, we must continually learn along with these changes. We learn to keep up but we also learn in order to drive the change itself. Many libraries incorporate programs to assist adults in keeping up with specific skills, resume building and technology, lest we fall behind in our employability in the constantly shifting world of work. These are vital and essential components of library programming. But there is something more fundamental to learning as an adult, to lifelong learning. It is not just about the need to keep pace on the hamster wheel, I believe there is an inherent biological need we all share for intellectual stimulation and the learning of new things.

Some people are incredibly adept self-directed learners–perhaps it either comes naturally to some and perhaps for others they learned to adapt when the world around them was only feeding their minds specific cookie-cutter bits of knowledge. But not everyone has or learns this practice. I believe that libraries are a crucial resource for offering learning for everyone. Not just the young, not just the job seekers, not just the crafters or the new language learners. As we age, it is important to keep our minds fed and our hearts engaged.

Many lifetimes ago I worked as a child advocate in a family court system. Frequently parents who were forced into the system because they were deemed poor parents (in nearly all cases poor in a more literal sense was almost always the culprit) and they would be instructed to take certain classes, parenting or similar, in order to be approved to allow their families to remain intact. Numerous times I watched these adults thrive when being provided learning opportunities and numerous times I heard the courts say, “Well, of course they do well because they’re trying to prove they can. As soon as these classes end, they regress.” But I disagreed. I believed what I was seeing was a deep human need being met, one that was otherwise closed off to them due to poverty and other life situations, and that was the inherent hunger for intellectual stimulation. I left that world and moved into adult education after that.

Libraries are the solution to feeding this need. Stephens imagines opportunities “in which stakeholders, library staff, community technology leaders, the public, the curious, and everyone in between might come together to experience all the possible avenues to creativity and discovery available within our virtual and physical library spaces.” And who are the curious? All of us! It is the very nature of being human.

The famous adage tells us that old dogs can’t learn new tricks. That may be true but only because people stop teaching them. In the end we will all age, we will all be curious, and we will all be old dogs. Nevertheless, we will keep learning because we have our libraries and our libraries will keep our hearts and minds fed.

References

Stephens, M. (2014). Making the Case for the Library as a Space for Infinite Learning. [Presentation]. https://www.dropbox.com/s/p46kkmbkvwpdsng/YLibraryInfiniteLearning.pdf?e=1&dl=0