libraries

Review: Cloud Cuckoo Land

/ rtrube54 / 7 Comments

Cloud Cuckoo Land, Anthony Doerr. New York: Scribner, 2021.

Summary: A story of five characters living in three time periods, whose lives are tied together by the story of Aethon the shepherd written by Antonius Diogenes.

I ordered this one as soon as I could. I thought Anthony Doerr’s All the Light You Cannot See one of the best novels I’ve read in the past twenty years. The novel won a Pulitzer Prize and I couldn’t wait to see how he would follow that tour de force. I guess my response, having read the book, would be to say, “It’s complicated….”

For one thing, it is complicated as a story, really three stories occurring in three time periods of five people whose lives are tied together by another story. The story that ties these three together is of Aethon the shepherd who embarks on a quest to find a mythical city in the clouds where all his questions will be answered and longings met. Successively, he is transformed into a donkey, a fish, and a crow before he finds the city and gains admission at the gates. The story is actually based on a few extant fragments of The Wonders of Thule, the remainders of an 1800 year old manuscript by Antonius Diogenes, according to a note by Doerr.

The first story is occurs in 1452-53, in the attack on Constantinople. Anna, an apprentice seamstress, to supplement her wages to get medical help for her sister, becomes a petty thief, climbing a tower with a lost library. While her and her accomplice sell various items, she keeps an old, somewhat mildewed book that is the tale of Aethon, which she reads to her dying sister, and preserves as a treasure, which in later years made it to the Vatican. Eventually she flees the city, meeting up with Omeir, ostensibly an enemy, a hare-lipped young man, something of an outcast, whose gentle life had been spent tending oxen used to transport siege materials. They flee together to his home.

The second story is in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from the 1930’s to the 2050’s. The older of the characters is Zeno, a gay Korean war surviving POW, who first heard Aethon’s story from Rex, an antiquities scholar from England and fellow prisoner. Zeno returned to Lakeport, Idaho, where he spent an uneventful life as a plow driver, punctuated by a visit to Rex and his gay lover in England. Subsequently, through the local librarian, he learns of a digitized version of the only surviving manuscript of the story of Aethon. Consulting with Rex, he spends his retirement years translating an annotated version of the story, until enlisted one day by the librarian, Marian, to help her occupy a group of five fifth graders. He turns his translation into a play that he rehearses with the fifth graders and it is on the night of the rehearsal that he has his fateful encounter with Seymour.

Seymour is an autistic youth raised by a single mom in a double-wide she inherited, as she struggles in low wage jobs to make ends meet. What helps him survive are woods behind his home, where he encounters Trustyfriend, an owl he sits with who brings peace to the cacophony of his autistic world–until developers turn the woods into a high end development. Trustyfriend disappears. And then one day, he finds the wing of an owl. Over time, he becomes an extreme environmental activist, drawn into a dark web group for which he must commit an act of violent protest to be initiated. He chooses to make a bomb to blow up the library–on the night of the rehearsal.

The third story center around Konstance, the precocious daughter of a scientist father and teacher mother on an instellar, multigenerational voyage in the twenty-second century, who heard the story of Aethon from her father before being confined in quarantine when a disease sweeps through the ship, apparently killing all the others. Sybil, the all-knowing “Hal” of the ship will not release her, so she begins to research the story of Aethon, reassembling the scraps of the manuscript and tracing the provenance of the story, including a beautifully bound copy she sees in a digital image in a window of her father’s childhood home.

Doerr moves back and forth between the three stories, weaving successive episodes of the story of Aethon through the whole narrative. As I said, it’s complicated, layered…and for me, it worked, in ways both similar and different to All the Light We Cannot See. Like that book, children play a significant role here, as well as one older storyteller. In the first story, two children on the opposite sides in a siege intersect, with a very different result. Like that book I hear Doerr’s quiet voice unfolding a story of beauty and pathos What is so different is the use of an overarching story to connect the other three, a story that transforms characters in each of the three stories.

Perhaps the import of this all is in the dedication: “For the librarians then, now, and in the years to come.” The narrative is about the preservation of a book, a story nearly lost, hidden in a derelict library, digitized in another, translated in a third, and rediscovered in a fourth. A library played a powerful shaping role on the life of Zeno, as it did on the five children in this play, one of who turns out to be an ancestor of Konstance. A bibliophile at one point in the story reminds us that out of the thousands of ancient Greek plays, we have only thirty-two. Books may be destroyed by fire, water, mold and mildew, insects, shredding, and in our digital age, by erasure or the degradation of digital information or obsolescence of the devices on which the books are read. Doerr offers a quiet polemic for the protection of the stories of our civilization and the vital role of libraries and librarians in that work.

All this occurs against an apocalyptic backdrop, the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans, the worsening environmental crisis of the present, and the desperate efforts to plant a human civilization on a distant world. Is there a word here that our civilization’s stories may be even more vital to preserve in desperate times when the temptation is great to neglect them? Might we find ourselves even in the seeming silliness of the story of Aethon and profit from the story of his quest? Only if the stories remain.

The Wonder of a Library

/ rtrube54 / 3 Comments
Photo by Element5 Digital on Pexels.com

The Reuben McMillan Free Library near downtown Youngstown is a beautiful old building erected in 1910 (and currently undergoing renovations). It was partially funded by a grant from Andrew Carnegie, as were many libraries around the country. The first time my father took me there as a boy, I was somewhat in awe of its Classical Revival architecture as I approached the big doors of its front entrance. I had been so excited to learn how to read, but most of the books around our house were too advanced for this young reader.

The real joy came when we went downstairs and I saw the children’s library. We went to the librarian’s desk and I was signed up for a library card. I think at the time you were allowed to check out up to six books at a time. It was wonderful to go shelf by shelf, run my fingers along the spines as I read the titles, and looked for books that I wanted to read.

I loved adventure stories. I remember reading the Adventures of Robin Hood. I also loved science books, and loved reading about space and rockets. Then there were baseball stories. I read about my heroes. Willie Mays, Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle, and about great baseball teams of the past.

We went every couple weeks. Dad would go upstairs where the adult books were while I turned in my books and selected new ones and checked them out and then showed my dad what I had selected. It was not only exciting to anticipate the joys between the covers of the books. It was a special shared moment between my father and me. This, along with observing my mother’s love of reading, cultivated a love of books that has endured six decades later.

How grateful I am for Reuben McMillan, Andrew Carnegie, and all those librarians who recognized and encouraged my love of books. How grateful I am for the public funds that have made possible all the libraries I’ve used over the years in every town where I’ve lived. I still find myself delighted to read the titles of newly arrived books at our local library. How grateful I am for all that libraries have done to expand e-book lending during the pandemic and other safe options for borrowing books.

I realize I’ve written only about books, but I am amazed at the array of services our local libraries offer, including COVID tests! Even when our libraries were closed, local residents could park nearby and use the wi-fi, an important benefit if the family budget doesn’t permit broadband connections. There are reference librarians to help with any information request, homework help, language classes, computer and printer access, and so much more. Children’s librarians not only offer creative programs but work with children to help them find books they will love.

I have a hard time thinking of another organization which does so much for my community and does it with excellence. My library wins “Five Star” awards yearly and awards for financial reporting excellence. It’s the one part of my property taxes I have no problem paying, or increasing when it is needed. I also realize state and federal funding is an important part of library funding. If you believe encouraging lifelong learners is a worthy investment, I think this is one of the best ways to use public funds that will bring a great return on investment.

One can talk about programs and benefits of libraries. But perhaps the image to remember is that wide-eyed child getting his or her first library card and getting to borrow an armload of books. I was once that child. Were you?

Review: A Gentle Madness

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments

A Gentle Madness, Nicholas A Basbanes. New York: Henry Holt, 1999.

Summary: An entertaining journey through the history and contemporary world of book collecting, and the “bibliomanes” whose passion for books formed amazing collections.

I think it is obvious that I love books. More precisely, I love reading books and talking about them. I do have a number of books in my home (and have donated or sold large numbers). I am a bibliophile, but not a bibliomane. This is the “gentle madness” Nicholas Basbanes writes about in this thick, delightful book you just don’t want to end because of the interesting stories of bibliomanes. The title comes from a description of Isaiah Thomas as being stricken with “the gentlest of infirmities, bibliomania.”

The most interesting difference between bibliophiles and bibliomanes, is that the former love reading books, while the latter collect them. The collectors usually have some focus in their collecting, from first editions of great books, to everything coming from the hand of a particular author or set of authors. I love finding books at the lowest price. Collectors pay attention to price but will spare no expense for something they want. At the very beginning, we meet a chef and restaurateur, Louis Szathmary, whose collection of cookbooks and artifacts filled sixteen semi-trailers and went to half a dozen institutions. And this is the fascinating part of the story. So often the collecting efforts of individuals accomplished what great libraries could not–forming distinctive collections that eventually enhanced these libraries’ holdings, whether Samuel Pepys, whose holdings went to Cambridge, John Harvard’s library that formed the core of the university named after him or the Huntington Library formed out of the personal collection of Henry Huntington. For that matter, Thomas Jefferson’s substantial library became the core of the Library of Congress.

Basbanes takes us through the fascinating world of booksellers, agents of buyers, and auctions of rare books. We are introduced to the high priced world of incunabula, early printed books, usually those printed before 1501. He describes a sale of Shakespeare’s First Folio, a collection of 36 plays for $2.1 million in 1989 (recently Christie’s auctioned a copy for $10 million). We learn of Ruth Baldwin who collected children’s books, eventually installing this collection at the University of Florida. Then there is Harry Hunt Ransom, who became the driving force behind the Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas. Ransom cozied up to Texas politicos awash in funds from the Texas oil industry.

One of the unavoidable realities of collecting was the death (or sometimes the insolvency) of the collector. The efforts and funds to build up a collection then required the organizing, curating, and protecting of these rare resources. Inevitably, the question arises of the disposition of the collection. We learn both about auctions that form the inheritance of future generations, and the intentional donation or sale of libraries to other institutions. In some cases, the donor came along with the library during their life as did Ruth Baldwin who oversaw the installation of her children’s books and continued to curate the collection until shortly before her death.

Perhaps the strangest story is that of the collector who stole rather than bought his collection. Stephen Carrie Blumberg amassed a collection of Americana in his home in Ottumwa, Iowa valued at roughly $20 million. It consisted of stolen materials from libraries from all over the country. His thefts involved everything from stolen or duplicated keys to crawling through ventilation systems. Eventually he was caught. Basbanes interviewed him during his trial, during which he recounted his drive to build “his” collection and how he obtained it.

This book has become something of a “classic” among book lovers. If nothing else, it is comfort to most of us who may be berated for how many books we have. If nothing else, we can point to people even more eccentric than we are. They are each uniquely eccentric, yet also incredibly focused to assemble their collections. We learn about this gentle madness that has existed as long as there were books, and even become acquainted with some through the author’s travels and discussions with them. And since this book is out of print (though listed on Amazon and other sites), you can have a taste of the fun of collecting in finding a copy. If you love books about books and those who collect them, this is a treasure trove for your own collection.

Review: The Library Book

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment

The Library Book

The Library Book, Susan Orlean. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018.

Summary: Centered around the fire that destroyed much of the collection of the Los Angeles Public Library in 1986, chronicles the history of the library, and why libraries are such important parts of our communities.

I grew up going to the Reuben B. McMillan Library in Youngstown, Ohio, and later to the branch library near my home, losing myself in books. In the course of my life, I’ve lived in two cities with great library systems, Cleveland (where the author of this work grew up) and Columbus. I don’t allow political signs on my property–except for the library.

Susan B. Orlean’s book on the Los Angeles Public Library reads like a love letter to libraries. She describes her own childhood, going to the Bertram Woods Library in Shaker Heights, and the library near her Los Angeles home, followed by a tour of the Central Library where she learned about the fire of April 29, 1986. The fire began in the northeast stack of the fiction section and reached 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, so hot that the flames were pale blue in color. Over 400,000 books were lost, another 700,000 damaged. We learn about the laborious salvage operation that restored books soaked in water, books that would quickly have succumbed to mold and been rendered useless.

She describes what that day was like for library employees, who felt like they were witnessing a death. She describes the investigation of the fire, believed to be arson, and reveals how difficult in many cases arson is to prove, and how some of the assumptions investigators make can mislead them. The lead suspect is profiled, a sometime actor named Harry Peak, who told a different story of his whereabouts every time he was asked. Descriptions that fit him and the inconsistent stories led to his arrest as a suspect, but insufficient evidence existed to try, let alone convict him. It turns out Harry lied all the time. Conditions were such in the library that spontaneous combustion was a real possibility, and the stack designed created the ideal fire. Harry received a $35,000 settlement from the city for damage to his reputation that barely put a dent in medical expenses he incurred as he died of HIV/AIDS.

I found the Harry Peak part of the story the least engaging part of the book. He was a sad figure, especially compared to some of the early head librarians like Mary Foy, and Charles Lummis, a colorful journalist who succeeded her when it was decided that a woman couldn’t head up a library, even though she had capably done so. Actually, they both gave great leadership in developing the institution, its outreach to the community, and the growth of its collections.

Orlean traces the history of the building from its conception, the changes it underwent over the years and deteriorating condition prior to the fire, followed by its restoration and the modern addition to it afterwards. She takes us around to the different departments of the library and volunteered with The Source, a gathering of social agencies at the library allowing L.A. residents a one-stop way to connect with agencies that could address their particular set of needs.

This also served as an example of her description of the changing landscape of library services which range from homeless center to social services, to an adjunct to educational institutions, and a technology hub offering access to various forms and media of information, books and far more. Orlean summarized her conversation with Eva Mitnick, head of the Central Library:

Mitnick and I talked about the future of libraries. She is an idealist. She thinks libraries are adapting to the world as it is now, where knowledge streams around us as well as being captured in physical books. . . . Mitnick sees libraries as information and knowledge centers rather than simply as storehouses of material. She is one of a large cohort of library people who believe libraries will remain essential to their communities. By most measures, this optimistic cohort seems to be right. According to a 2010 study, almost three hundred million Americans used one of the country’s 17,078 public libraries and bookmobiles in the course of the year. In another study, over ninety percent of those surveyed said closing their local library would hurt their communities. Public libraries in the United States outnumber McDonald’s; they outnumber retail bookstores two to one. In many towns, the library is the only place you can browse through physical books.

Actually, Orlean has written far more than an account of a fire, or an account of an arson investigation, or a library history, or even a love letter to libraries. What she has done is articulate why libraries are vital cultural institutions worth preserving and supporting and patronizing, and the vital works librarians are engaged in as they both preserve and advance learning in service of the public good.

Do We Need a New Andrew Carnegie?

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment

Andrew_Carnegie,_three-quarter_length_portrait,_seated,_facing_slightly_left,_1913

By Theodore Christopher Marceau – Library of Congress, Public Domain, via Wikimedia

Andrew Carnegie was a steel and rail baron of the nineteenth century who made a fortune, and then spent the last two decades of his life giving much of it away. All told, he gave away approximately $350 million (the equivalent of $65 billion) in today’s dollars. Some say he was atoning for the ruthless practices involved in acquiring his fortune. He was a pioneer in developing the vertically integrated industry in which rail, coal, steel, and steamship lines controlled every aspect of production.

After selling his industries to what became U.S. Steel in 1901, he turned his focus to giving away his fortune. One of his major investments was libraries. His idea was to give his resources so that the poor could help themselves, and libraries were a key component of his philanthropic strategy. His first library was built in Dumferline, Scotland in 1883. He built libraries in Great Britain, Canada, other English speaking countries and in the United States. The first in the U.S. was in nearby Braddock, Pennsylvania, opened in 1888.

fb_img_15686367597764587037846743374079.jpg

Source unknown, widely attributed to Andrew Carnegie

According to Wikipedia, by 1923, 1419 grants totaling $45,865,440.10 resulted in the building of 1647 libraries. An NPR story puts the total at $60 million building 1689 libraries. Worldwide, his grants funded construction of over 3,000 libraries. In addition, he invested in educational institutions, including Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie-Mellon University) and Tuskegee Institute (a historically Black college). He also invested in pension funds for his workers and in the arts.

Many of the library buildings constructed with his grants are still standing, often among the distinguished architectural structures in their towns, whether still in use as libraries or not.

So what is the situation today? Libraries offer a tremendous array to Carnegie’s working man or women and their children. In addition to books, a variety of digital resources are available for lending, children’s programs, tutoring programs and a variety of adult education programs are offered in many communities that assist with job skills and job hunting. Computer resources provide online access for those who cannot afford these or have only limited access. Most libraries are providing ever-growing numbers of people with greater numbers of services, often at fairly static funding levels, making them among the most efficient organizations.

The funding picture of libraries is primarily through state funding and local property tax levies. Ohio, where I live recently raised the percentage of its state budget going to libraries from 1.68 to 1.7 percent. This money provides roughly half of library funding overall. The reality though is that while some municipalities invest heavily in their libraries, others, often in cash-strapped rural settings, live almost entirely on state funding. The good news is that there is a great return on investment in library funding. A recent study found that $1 invested in Ohio libraries returned nearly $5 in economic value and Ohio has the highest per capita library use in the country. Federal funding for the Museum and Libraries Services was recently renewed and increased by $11 million, despite Trump administration opposition.

So while there is some good news on the U.S. funding front, many small libraries are struggling, and I hear of some that have closed, leaving “library deserts” in some areas of the country. The situation is worse in the United Kingdom, where nearly 130 libraries closed this past year and many are being run by volunteer staff. Certainly, the situation is more dire yet in other parts of the world.

Could philanthropists play a bigger part? For twenty years, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation did that, but announced in 2018 that they are winding down their program after funding free internet access in U.S. libraries, and greater technology access throughout the world. While some places like Harvard have huge endowments of $36 billion. A Washington Post article reports that by contrast there are only several billion dollars nationally in library endowments. The case has been made for a National Library Endowment with a goal of $20 billion. How could it happen? The Post article notes that the top 400 wealthiest in this country are worth $2.4 trillion. In other words, less than one percent of this wealth could fully endow this fund at $20 billion, and continue to build it in succeeding years. This could mean hiring librarians in cash strapped urban systems, expanding digital access, developing school libraries, and enhanced technology for research libraries. Mackenzie Bezos has committed a portion of her Amazon fortune to The Giving Pledge, organized by Warren Buffett to encourage just this kind of philanthropy.  Wouldn’t it be a bit ironic if she gave this toward a library endowment? Stranger things have happened.

Libraries continue to provide huge benefits to their communities and serve as “springs in the desert.” Who will take up the mantle of Andrew Carnegie in this generation? One hopes the day may come where alongside Carnegie’s name, we see those of Zuckerberg, Buffett, Bezos, Brin, Ellison, Bloomberg, Winfrey, and Cuban. All it would take is for these folks to put their heads–and their money–together and decide to make it happen. The whole country would be richer for it.

Why Libraries are Worth Our Support

/ rtrube54 / 5 Comments

Rose Reading Room

Rose Reading Room, New York Public Library. Alex Proimos from Sydney, Australia [CC BY 2.0] via Wikimedia.

Right now, libraries in many parts of the U.S. are facing cuts to funding. The most visible case of this is the New York Public Library, which while not technically facing a cut is only receiving an increase from $387.7 million to $388.8 million, which given inflation and increased demand for services, amounts to a cut. High profile figures, including Sarah Jessica Parker have joined the fight to increase library funding in the different boroughs of New York City.

I think libraries are one of the best deals out there today for those who pay taxes. I only occasionally borrow books at the library, but even my occasional borrowing, if I consider the retail price of the book, more than offsets the portion of my taxes.

My basic argument for libraries is that they are one of the most powerful weapons we have for sustaining our democracy, particularly given the growing income disparities in our country.

  • They provide online access, computer terminals, and printing facilities for those who cannot afford these.
  • They offer books for children who cannot afford them, fostering literacy at the most critical time of life.
  • They provide resources for job searches, and often basic courses in job-seeking, and computer literacy that is fundamental for many workers.
  • Many offer homework assistance for students and language assistance for immigrants wanting to learn English.
  • Libraries make available expensive manuals and reference materials for those who by necessity are do-it-yourselfers.
  • Many offer help with college admissions tests, helping to offset the advantages that more affluent students have with test prep courses and other assistance, legal or illegal, in getting admitted to colleges.

In addition, libraries offer so much at no cost to patrons simply for personal growth and entertainment–books, recorded music, videos in both physical and e-formats. They offer a range of programs serving every age group from children to seniors for personal enrichment. The demand for all these services continues to rise, often meaning personnel in the libraries are trying to stretch funding to acquire materials, and often the same people are working harder and longer–many of whom hold at least masters degrees in library science.

Librarians also are increasingly have to cope with the social challenges of our age. Librarians may be the first to spot child abuse. In urban centers, librarians often serve patrons who are homeless, chemically dependent, or mentally ill. In some instances, librarians are the first to respond to a drug overdose and many are trained to administer Naloxone.

All this is to say that I am proud to support the library in my community and extremely impressed with all that they accomplish with our tax dollars. I would venture that this is true in most communities. Why not take time to thank a librarian this week? And if there is a tax issue on the ballot, the best way you can say thanks is to vote yes. It not only is a great bargain (often less than your Prime membership, and certainly your cable bill), but it is one of the best investments I can think of in sustaining our democracy.

 

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Reuben McMillan

/ rtrube54 / 5 Comments

14766568765_4750b275e1_o

Reuben McMillan

When I was a young boy, my father took me to the Main Library each Saturday to take books out of the library–the Reuben McMillan Library. I didn’t give it a thought as a kid, but as I explore our shared history, I keep coming across the names of people who helped make the city of Youngstown what it was and still is. Reuben McMillan is one of these people.

McMillan was born October 7, 1820 in Canfield. He went to various schools until age thirteen and then took up the trade of harness making. Working during the day, he studied Latin, algebra and geometry and other advanced subjects in the evenings. By 1837 (at seventeen!) he started teaching in rural schools and used his earnings to continue to advance his own education from 1839 to 1843 at a private academy. By 1849, he was serving as superintendent of the Hanoverton schools in Columbiana County, then Lisbon and New Lisbon schools until he retired in 1853 due to health issues which dogged him throughout his life. Regaining his health, he became superintendent in Salem in 1855, then Youngstown in 1861.

He served as superintendent in Youngstown for six years until failing health necessitated his resignation in 1867. Were it not for this, he could have been superintendent of the Cleveland system. That was not to be, to Youngstown’s benefit. By 1872, restored health permitted him to return to his superintendent’s position in which he served until 1886. In Joseph G. Butler, Jr’s History of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley, he describes why Reuben McMillan was so highly esteemed:

“It was not mere length of service, however, that endeared Youngstown school pupils and Youngstown men and women of mature years to Reuben McMillan. Blessed with great ability, he was also one of the kindliest of men, tender, considerate, devoted to his work and caring little for personal gain. The poorer children of the schools were the object of his
special solicitude. His beauty of countenance of itself stamped him as one of nature’s noblemen. He was a tutor by example as well as precept, living the God fearing life that he encouraged in the youth of Youngstown. In religion he was a Presbyterian, and for some years was an elder in the old First Church here.”

While libraries had been part of Youngstown schools since the 1840’s, McMillan, joined by two teachers and two physicians, formed the Youngstown Library Association on October 27, 1880. The library began with 168 volumes and the two teachers, Miss Pearson and Miss Hitchcock were the first librarians, working out of a building on West Federal Street. The library went through a reorganization and on March 5, 1898 was named the Reuben McMillan Free Library Association, which is still the official name of The Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County. This was a special honor since McMillan was still alive at this time, passing on June 23 of that year.

20181019_1855394339725742220883879.jpg

Richard A. Brown home, an early location of the Youngstown Public Library

The other special honor bestowed on McMillan came later. From its original home on West Federal, the library moved to the Richard A. Brown home in 1891 (now the site of the Mahoning County Courthouse). In 1907, a $50,000 gift from Andrew Carnegie made possible construction of a library at the corner of Wick and Rayen Avenue. When the library opened on December 3, 1910, with a capacity of 225,000 volumes, it was named the Reuben McMillan Free Library. Usually, the library is named after the major donor and there are many Carnegie libraries around the country. This was a case of a leader whose contribution was more important than money — an idea — a free library open to all residents of the city.

A large portrait of Reuben McMillan was hung in the library with this tribute from John H. Clarke, another advocate for the library, who helped pass legislation to allow tax levies to support public libraries:

“A man who sought neither wealth nor honor save as these were to be found in the faithful doing of his duty. He spent a long life for meager salary in training the youth of the city to live the highest intellectual life. When his name was chosen for the library it was because his generation chose to honor and revere that type of manhood which finds its best expression in that high stern-featured beauty of steady devotedness to duty.”

Reuben McMillan never enriched himself as an educator, but left a rich legacy to Youngstown in establishing a library to enrich the lives of children and adults from every walk of life in the city–a mission it continues to carry out to this day.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Michael Kusalaba Library

/ rtrube54 / 7 Comments

MK-Branch-front-web-768x404

Michael Kusalaba Library, Photo courtesy Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County. Used with permission.

Those of you who have followed this blog know that I grew up on Youngstown’s West side, and that I am a bookish sort of person. Some of this was due to a mom who was a reader and to inspiring teachers. A good part of this was also due to the hours I spent at the West Side Library as a kid. I wrote recently that when I think of going to a happy place in my mind, the most likely place I would go is a library.

One of the rites of passage in my life was getting my own library card. When I was growing up, the card was printed on cardboard, with your name typed on it by the librarian after completing a handwritten application. I felt a little more grown up when I received that card! It had to be renewed periodically, if you had no overdue books. Having overdue books felt like a sin. I wonder if my Catholic friends ever brought that up at confession!

It was a wonder, though, to walk up Mahoning Avenue the half mile or so from my home on N.Portland and go to my favorite sections, which tended to be sports, science and science fiction, and military history. It was the era of the space program and many of us were fascinated by rockets and space. I’d pick out as many books as you were allowed to check out (I think the number was six) and walk up to the check out desk, present my card, and the librarian would use this photo device and scan my library card and the book’s card, stamp the due date in the book, and I had an armload of books to read!

Later on, we learned how to use card catalogues, and how the Dewey Decimal system worked, and other reference resources so we could find information for reports and papers we needed to write for school. It was another rite of passage when you were allowed to use the “adult” part of the library.

So much for library memories. On trips back to Youngstown, we’d drive past the West Side Library, and apart from new signs, it looked the same from the outside. That is no longer the case. The old West Side Library served its last patrons on April 30, 2016 and was torn down to make way for a sparkling new, larger library on the same site.

A West side neighbor, Michael Kusalaba, and his family helped make that possible. Kusalaba grew up nearby on N. Maryland Avenue (I never knew him) and like me spent many hours at the library growing up, and throughout his life. He had a successful career with Ohio Edison and served as a trustee with the CASTLO Community Improvement Corporation. Before he passed in 2009, he established The Michael Kusalaba Fund with the Youngstown Foundation. On October 9, 2015, the Youngstown Foundation announced its largest gift to date, a $1.68 million gift for the construction of a new West Side library from The Michael Kusalaba Fund. Fittingly, it was decided that the new library would bear his name. The total project was budgeted at $3.775 million, the remainder coming from funding set aside for this purpose. The library operates debt-free.

The new library will open next week on February 14, a Valentine’s Day gift to the West side, and all of Youngstown. A formal dedication will follow on February 24. The new library is larger, at 11,514 square feet. It includes children’s, teen and adult areas, a casual Community Living Room area,  public meeting room, multimedia collections, a Technology Hub, with public access computers and other digital technology. There are self check-out and patron assistance kiosks. It also sounds like there will be an outdoor reading area and a courtyard for public events. A recent gift from the Slanina family sponsored the Community Foyer. Sponsorships of other areas of the library are still available.

The library will be open 10 am to 8 pm Monday through Thursday and 10 am to 6 pm on Friday and Saturday. It will also serve as the base for the library’s “Pop Up” mobile outreach throughout the county.

Michael Kusalaba was a leader in community development and a lover of the library. This facility, which bears his name, will hopefully inspire more new development on the West side. It will also be a place where a new generation of West side children might discover the joys of reading and discovery, and residents of all ages can gather for community events and pursue lifelong learning. I can’t wait to see it myself.

Librarians in Dystopia

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments

1930's_-_ca._-_Alma_Custead,_Librarian,_and_Staff

Patchogue-Medford Library, [CC BY-SA 2.5] via Wikimedia

Remember when the role of the librarian was to help you find research materials for your homework, sign you up for a library card, help you log onto the library computers, and check out your books? Remember when librarians were the guardians of a safe, quiet place of discovery?

Our news is filled with accounts of opioid abuse and overdose deaths, gun violence, and sexual harassment and abuse. In many of our minds, we consider the library a sanctuary from such things, a place to read the newspaper, to hunt for your next read, to do research on a business start up idea. When, in my mind I conjure up my idea of a “safe place” or my “happy place” some version of a library often comes to mind.

Sadly, the reality of the evening news has invaded my safe and happy place. A recent story run by our local CBS affiliate cited the statistic that police answered 3200 calls to our city’s libraries in the last two years. They received calls for drug overdoses, shootings, gang fights, and sexual harassment and assaults.

In one incident, a librarian was punched in the head by a 12-year old boy after asking him to be quiet. Plainly, librarians are being called upon to deal with situations most of them probably never dreamed of when they decided to pursue the profession. This was the subject of a recent Bookriot article by Katie McLain that gives a glimpse into the brave new world librarians are confronting each day. In some major cities, for example, librarians are receiving training in administering Naloxone. One Philadelphia librarian, Chera Kowalski, has saved dozens of lives and was recognized by Hillary Clinton for her work at the 2017 American Library Association convention, according to Fobazi Ettarh’s article, Vocational Awe and Librarianship.

In addition to confronting crises like those named above, librarians often are confronting issues once addressed by social agencies, the health care system, and other neighborhood institutions like churches, parishes, and other religious bodies. They are called upon to address homelessness, unemployment and mental health issues along with the more usual questions for which they trained. McLain asks the question of whether we are asking librarians to be our local “superheroes,” a role that can be exhausting, albeit rewarding.

It seems to me that this new reality that our librarians face in our dystopian world is something they should not face alone. It seems at least three things are important:

  1. If they are expected to regularly handle these situations they should be trained, institutionally supported and appropriately compensated.
  2. Libraries will need to spend more on security. The local news report I mentioned above indicated that our metropolitan library has spent $600,000 in upgraded security cameras in addition to hiring more security personnel. If we want our libraries to be safe and to provide the same or enhanced levels of service, in most municipalities, we should be prepared to pay for it.
  3. We need to recognize that, in addition to societal factors, the erosion of other neighborhood institutions puts more stress on the libraries to fill the gap. In particular, I think we have seen a decline in neighborhood religious institutions, which, along with mom and pop stores, have yielded to “big box” facilities 5, 10, or 20 miles away that have no connection with where their parishioners live. Likewise, many social agencies are in a central location, often distant from different parts of the city, and inaccessible to those lacking transportation. What can we do to strengthen networks of care in our local communities?

Finally, it probably won’t hurt to thank your local librarian for all that he or she does. It may in fact be far more than you think.