Why I Don’t Go to Libraries Anymore (and Why I Love Them Anyway)

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My local council has recently built an architectural award-winning building (even though I’ve heard people describing the outside as looking like Donald Trump’s hair) and moved both its offices and the library into it. I’m assured it’s beautiful inside. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t gone in and don’t have any plans to.

I don’t go to libraries anymore. The last time I went to a library was with my sister and her then pre-school aged daughter on one of their weekly trips to return the children’s books they’d borrowed and select some more. Before that? A body corporate meeting of unit owners where I lived that just happened to be in a hired meeting room at a library. And before that? During my undergraduate studies, which I finished when I was twenty-two (nearly half my lifetime ago).

A Few Reasons Why I Don’t Go to Libraries Anymore

Time Constraints on Reading

If I really get into a book, I can read straight through and finish it in one sitting (assuming I have the time, which I rarely do these days). If I don’t really get into a book or if it’s really long or if there are other things I have to prioritise, it can take me months to read a book. When this is the case, I don’t want to have to return to a library to renew my borrowings or even have to return them unfinished, I just want to put it on my bedside table and be able to pick it up whenever I have a few spare reading moments.

I don’t like being pressured to read, particularly not within a set period of time. Reading is something I do for enjoyment and pressure is not enjoyable.

I Prefer to Read in Private

I know plenty of people like to take a book to the beach or a coffee shop or a park or even simply pick one up in the library and start reading right there and then, but I feel weird reading in public. I will do it on the train (sometimes it’s safer than making eye contact) or at the airport bookshop when I’m waiting to catch a flight but, for the most part, I do all my reading at home (and most of it in bed – the term for a person who does this is a “librocubicularist”).

Although I know it’s not the intention, reading in public or even just in company feels like someone is being ignored. I’ve got guilt about enough things, I don’t need to add any more to the list.

If I Want to Read a Book, I Buy It

For some girls, it’s shoes. For me, it’s books. There is nothing that feels as good to a bookworm as buying a book. Certainly, it’s nothing like merely borrowing one (because you know you’ll eventually have to give it back).

There are so many second-hand books that need forever homes (and I buy them from charities so it’s a win-win scenario) that I might never have come across if I was browsing in a book store. And purchasing brand new books means I’m supporting writers to be able to support themselves and write more books.

I Don’t Have Any Children

I think libraries are so important as a part of children learning to love reading. My sister and her three children virtually live at the library. But I don’t have any children. And I already love reading. So, in conjunction with the other reasons I’ve espoused above, this is why I don’t go to libraries anymore.

A Few Reasons Why I Love Libraries Anyway

Libraries Are Where I Learned to Love Reading

Like I said, libraries are so important to children learning to love reading. It’s certainly where I learned it. My family wasn’t flush with cash when I was growing up so if we wanted to read books, this is where we found them. And since my parents were divorced and lived two hours apart, we had not one but two local libraries to spend hours in, as well as our school libraries and for those years we lived in a rural town, the mobile library in a truck that would come and park outside the school periodically.

It’s such an important formative experience to read as a youngster, to discover books that you love reading as a child. Let’s face it, if you don’t learn to love reading as a child, you’re unlikely to learn to love it at any other time in your life. And everyone can learn to love reading if they find books that speak to them. Where better than at a library?

Libraries Are Where I Learned

Okay, yes, this is what schools are for but when I think about, school is where I was taught but libraries are where I learned. There’s only so much information that can be conveyed in a classroom during very short classes (although at the time, they never felt short) but to reinforce it, to read opposing points of view, to learn more deeply about what are essentially a teacher’s talking points, there is nothing better than a library. Libraries might be where children learn to love reading but they are also where children learn to find things out for themselves instead of just accepting what they’re told.

I went through my primary, secondary and tertiary studies before the internet was the all-consuming and all-informing (some say ill-informed) thing it is now. There was no such thing as Google Scholar to find academic resources so we had to actually go to the library and physically look things up. It might sound tedious but actually it was a glorious process of discovery because you so often stumbled across things that you never would have if you hadn’t been walking past a shelf full of books that were technically outside of the area you were interested in.

Libraries Are the Reason for My First Ever Published Pieces

During the second-year of my second undergraduate qualification, I did a subject called Small Press Publishing. Essentially, the whole subject was about publishing a book. Everyone in the class proposed topics for the books, we chose one and then everyone was assigned a job that would get the book written, edited, designed and printed. The book was called InRoads and profiled the great streets of Melbourne in Australia (where we were living and studying).

I was assigned responsibility for coordinating the Toorak Road section. We put out requests to the student body to submit pieces and were looking for about six per street. We only received three for Toorak Road and so it became my additional responsibility to write the three extra pieces we required.

I’d never been to Toorak Road before but suddenly I needed to become an expert. I visited. I walked up and down the street. I noticed shop after shop with recognisable names and that became the first piece I wrote called, “What’s In a Name?” I took the free tour at Como House, a historical residence previously home to a high society family and now a National Trust property flush with tourists, and that became the second piece I wrote (you can read it here). And then I went to the local library and researched everything I could about the establishment and history of Toorak Road. It became the third piece I wrote. All three were published in the book, the first time I was ever published. (My father accompanied me on one of my visits and took dozens of photographs – particularly of Como House, St John’s Church and Fawkner Park – and that’s how he was published for the first time in the same book – on the front cover no less – but that’s another story.)

If it hadn’t been for that local library, I never would have been able to write that sixth and final piece to complete the Toorak Road section.

Libraries Hold Events for Writers and Readers

There is nothing better for a writer than connecting with readers who appreciate what they’ve written and readers clearly enjoy it as well or they wouldn’t turn up. “Meet the Author” events are offered in many libraries and while social media connections are common these days, there’s nothing quite like meeting your favourite writer in person. My nephew met Andy Griffiths when he was nine (another formative experience).

When I was younger, I would be in awe at the thought of seeing a writer whose work I liked in person but the thing that struck me when I finally heard them speaking was that they were just regular people with a particular skill. Now that I’m older and a writer myself, I cherish those connections even more because finding people who are prepared to read your work and want to talk to you about it is difficult. Thank God for libraries facilitating it.

Libraries Buy Books and Some Governments Offer Lending Rights Payments to Writers

Obviously, in order to have books on the shelves, libraries usually have to buy books, which is good news for authors. And in some countries (twenty-eight, according to Wikipedia at the time of writing this, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK, Israel and quite a few European countries), there are Public Lending Rights (for public libraries) and Educational Lending Rights (for educational libraries) programs. These programs differ by country but generally seem to be cultural programs administered by the governments to compensate authors for the loss of royalties from potential sales due to the books being available for free to those consuming them. We don’t get to say this often these days but yay to governments who recognise the importance of libraries and the authors of books that make libraries possible.

*****

If you need more convincing that libraries are wonderful places, I could give you plenty of reasons (computer access for people who don’t have it at home, historical record preservation, lending of films and music and now digital products as well, being a public gathering place along with general health and wellbeing benefits – seriously, there have been studies, look it up!) but if you’re reading this, then I suspect you’re already a library enthusiast. And I hope you still call into your local library from time to time even though I don’t. Because they rely on visitors through the doors to convince people obsessed with commercial priorities that they’re still worth funding. They are and always will be.