Kudos to my friend Jerry Apps for reminding me that this week—April 7-13, 2024—is National Library Week. The theme this year, according to the American Library Association, is “Ready, Set, Library!” 

Apart from the brutish verbing of an ancient and honorable noun, I endorse the sentiment.

Libraries, expecially local public libraries, are wonderful things. 

“Libraries connect our communities and enrich our lives in ways we may not realize,” says National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature and Newbery and Pura Belpré-award winning author Meg Medina, who serves as 2024 Honorary Chair.

Birth of a Bookworm

The first library where Your New Favorite Writer ever had borrowing privileges was the public library on Park Street in Streator, Illinois. I was astonished and proud to learn that, shucks, even kids in grade school could have library cards. I signed up and started reading books, one after another.

In those days, between the ages of six and twelve, I read what today we call kid lit. Adventures like Treasure Island and Swiss Family Robinson. Cowboy books like The Coming of Hopalong Cassidy. Horse books by Marguerite Henry, dog books by Albert Payson Terhune, Lassie Come-Home by Eric Knight. 

I read biographies especially written for children—thumbnail sketches of American heroes like Andrew Jackson, John C. Frémont, Lou Gehrig, and George Washington Carver. Casting my mind back to remember a children’s biography of a notable woman, I draw a blank. Sorry, dear—we just didn’t have them.

We had plenty of sports books, though, most of them written by Jackson Scholz or John R. Tunis. None of those books won the Newbery Medal or the Pura Belpré Award, but they were exciting and taught sportsmanship, persistence, self-respect, and consideration for others. 

And then there was science fiction. 

Dear Reader, when I was a boy, no actual human being had ever flown into space. But the feat had already been achieved many times over in the works of Robert Heinlein, Lester Del Rey, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke. 

My habit, when loitering—there is no better word for it—in the Streator Public Library, was to find a book that looked interesting, pull it off the shelf, and start reading. There in the cool stacks, I sat or squatted on the marble floor and read, sometimes as much as half a book before my stomach told me it was lunch time, or supper time. Then I would trot to the front desk, flash my library card, check out the book, and take it home to finish.

Carnegie Libraries

The library was a swell place to spend time, a temple of learning in its own right. It was one of 2,509 libraries built between 1883 and 1929 with money donated by Scottish-born steel magnate Andrew Carnegie—1,689 of them in the United States. 

According to its website, “The Streator Public Library is a US Landmark Carnegie facility that was constructed in 1903. The Fuchs murals that were installed, around the interior of the lower dome, were painted on leather in a local shop and installed in 1905. The original grand stair case, woodwork, shelves, and stained glass are still in place. Many of the original oak tables are still utilized.” 

Carnegie started his philanthropy by building a library in his birthplace of Dunfermline, Scotland. Then he gave a library to his adopted hometown of Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and another to Braddock, Pennsylvania, the site of one of his steel mills. 

Eventually, it got out of hand.

As Carnegie began to realize how much money he had, he entertained library proposals from all over. In 1897 he hired a personal assistant, James Bertram, and put him in charge of screening all the requests. They developed a questionnaire to determine whether a town applying for a library actually needed and could support one. They made sure local officials were committed to funding the ongoing costs in perpetuity. 

Once a town was declared eligible to receive a Carnegie library, a handsome edifice was built—in any of several different styles, but with quality and elegance. It was almost always entered by a flight of stairs, symbolizing the elevation of the public mind through reading. There was also a lamp post or lantern near the entrance, a symbol of enlightenment. 

Carnegie pioneered the open stack library. Until then, most library stacks were closed. You submitted a request for a book, and then a librarian went and got it for you. Carnegie figured self-service would reduce operating costs for libraries, and he was right.

But open stacks brought a greater risk of pilferage. So the circulation desks at Carnegie libraries are usually large, imposing, and placed conspicuously near the main entrance. 

That Desk is a Friend of Mine

In 2013, a new circulation desk was installed at the Streator Public Library, dedicated to the memory of Oral and Dorothy Endres, the donor’s parents. As it happens, I remember Oral Endres. He was an insurance agent for Metropolitan Life. A nice man. When I was a boy, about seventy years ago, he spent time at our kitchen table often enough so I knew his name. He made sure we were adequately covered.

Mr. Endres’ son, who gave the new circulation desk, was not as big a donor as Andrew Carnegie; but it’s the thought that counts.

Visit your local library soon. While you’re there, take out a book.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer