Bookstores, Libraries, and Class

Over the last several years, I've come to feel quite estranged from my socio-economic group. This has a lot to do with the students I was working with, many of whom were really struggling economically. It also has something to do with my own brush with penury, occasioned by the collapse of my writing career as a source of income. 

I spent a lot of time feeling angry at my fellow college-educated, middle- and upper-class liberals. Part of this was jealousy, of course, but another part was resentment at how little anybody seemed to care about what people with no money go through in this country. (It's constant anxiety peppered with despair and served with a side order of humiliation. I don't recommend it.)

And so this is why, in 2013, I lashed out at Sherman Alexie when he, on behalf of the the American Booksellers' Association, asked writers to volunteer at bookstores on Small Business Saturday, sponsored by American Express. Dennis Abrams at Publishing Perspectives reprinted my blog post in its entirety without linking to my website (well, he offered a broken link, so I guess his heart was in the right place), and Jill at Book Riot added  a couple paragraphs to the Publishing Perspectives piece without linking to me or Publishing Perspectives. Which I guess was okay because it meant I was mostly abused in the comments sections on those sites rather than here in my little space.

One of the things that bothered me about both Alexie's appeal (and he's since been joined by other writers every year, and I still think it's an offensively dumb idea, for the record) and the response to my screed was this idea that bookstores are some sort of wonderful community center. This is a staple of the middle class, NPR-listening worldview. Here's another piece from just a couple of days ago about this.

Now, I got nothing against bookstores. And I get what it's like to feel a sentimental attachment to a business. I loved 3rd Street Jazz & Rock in Philadelphia (RIP)--probably the best record store I ever went to, and I went to a lot. I've written a few books at Ula Cafe, and they have great coffee and a killer egg and biscuit breakfast on the weekends. (I get mine with mushroom gravy, and it is divine.)

But those are businesses. They exist (or, existed) not to serve the community, but to make money. And most independent bookstores don't even serve the whole community of readers. Go into an independent bookstore and ask where their romance section is. I dareya. Then ask for the horror section. Most independent bookstores exist to serve a certain subset of the community. And this is why white, middle-class, NPR-listening liberals love them so much. Because it feels like a community gathering place, but you're probably not going to bump into anyone who makes you uncomfortable with their difference there. It's a place where you can connect with people like you. Which is fine. But it's not the same thing as a benefit to the community.

But libraries are actually a benefit to the community. I spent a year volunteering at the Boston Public Library, running a weekly Dungeons & Dragons game for teens at the East Boston Library (which is one of the most beautiful libraries in the area) and, for a short time, at the Egleston Square library (which is a hideous building where wonderful things happen.)

Let me tell you what I saw in these places: kids and teens. Tons of them. Exercising their creativity playing Minecraft, getting help with their homework, and just sitting at tables with their friends. Also adults: people looking for jobs and trying to straighten out some thorny immigration problem, using the free public internet because they don't have internet at home. Or just sitting in a chair and reading books. Or checking out DVDs. Or sitting at a table scribbling in a notebook. And me, getting to take books home and read them for free. And librarians, who, it turns out, need to be experts in almost everything.

You get the idea. Libraries are actually the community benefit that people imagine bookstores to be.  Why does this distinction matter so much to me?  I guess because we live in an era where the very idea of the public good is under attack. And so things that actually serve the public are gutted, and comfortable people with money just opt into something they can afford. Unreliable public transportation? Take an Uber! School falling down? Send your kids to private school?  No place to get free access to information? Who needs it? I've got a bookstore where I can buy books and a five hundred dollar phone that I pay 80 bucks a month to use! 

Libraries are part of the lifeblood of our communities. They make the entire place better and stronger. They allow people without the resources to afford internet access or regular book purchases access to all the information in the world.  They provide kids with a safe place to do something positive after school. All this stuff is absolutely critical to a functional community, and what's more, it's the kind of stuff that liberals are supposed to believe in. 

And yet even in the bookish corners of the internet, precious little is said about the immeasurable value of libraries, and someone is rhapsodizing about a bookstore every ten minutes. Bookstores are great--but libraries need you more. They are under constant attack, and they need the community to stand up and proclaim their importance so they get the funding they need to maintain and staff the buildings and to keep providing resources to everyone who walks in the door.   

Some people will probably say it's not an either/or thing. I agree. I guess I'm just saying this: bookstores will take care of themselves. Part of the job of a business is to attract customers.  Libraries need all of us if they're going to survive. We all have limited time and attention, so I guess I'm saying if you're blogging, tweeting, or volunteering, please take care of the library. You need it. And it needs you.