We Need Libraries Just as Much as They Need Us

My local library never stood out to me as a child. It didn’t smell of old vintage paperbacks or look like the perfect autumnal picture of academia that I would see in the movies. It stood on the main highway of my small Texas town, next to the courthouse and public pool. But there was always a piece of magic in every library visit.

Whether it was beaming as I turned in my completed summer library challenge to the librarian or sneaking upstairs to the young adult novel section as a child under twelve, it was an establishment that forever represented learning and discovering. 

Its importance to me was highlighted in the latter half of 2020, a world somewhat attempting to recover from a local pandemic, and I, being a teenager, spent my final year of high school inside my childhood bedroom, restricted to the confines of scrolling on social media and streaming services. The Fridays when I was “let out” of school early were spent at the library, deciding my next movie (I was lucky with an insane number of Criterion DVDs for a smaller library) and my next novel for the week. It inadvertently became one of the most important rituals of my teenage years, and one I would continue to carry on into my adult life. 

I moved to New York City in 2021, where the iconic Jefferson Market library of Greenwich Village remained under construction. The building is beautiful, representing all the ideas I had of a perfect library. Settled in the heart of one of New York City’s oldest and most coveted neighborhoods, the Gothic architecture of what was previously a church would have made the perfect space for a Sunday afternoon studying session, or a place for a tired parent to take their child for a free activity in one of America’s most expensive cities. However, in 2024, Mayor Eric Adams’ proposed fiscal budget included major financial cuts that would terminate Sunday services in branches of the New York Public Library across all boroughs. 

Will Hermes, author and native New Yorker, spoke out against the calls on his X account (formerly Twitter), stating that it was “Straight up evil.” Hermes grew up in Eastern Queens, with the highlight of his week being his and his sister’s visit to the NYPL Central branch on Merrick Boulevard, in Jamaica, Queens. He says that cuts to the libraries on the weekends “starve precisely the communities with the least access to reliable information, and who need it the most.” 

In a similar vein, Donald Trump’s administration has been hard at work to undermine and cut funding to public libraries across the country since the inauguration. In March of this year, Trump signed an executive order that calls upon the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)  to eliminate “non-statutory components and functions.” The American Library Association (ALA) released a statement on March 15th, opposing the order just one day after it was signed, which highlighted ways that the allotted budget services well over 1.2 billion Americans for their in-person and virtual visits, which include: early literary development, summer reading programs, access to the Internet, braille and talking books for those with visual impairments, and much more. The statement was also a call to action, imploring that President Trump reconsider this decision, and it calls upon Americans to reach out to their elected leaders and simply show up for their libraries. 

The conversation around the lack of third spaces for the younger generations has become more prevalent in the time of inflation and steadily increasing costs of living. Public spaces that require no contribution to capital are slowly decreasing through the actions of the Trump administration, and libraries seem to be one of its main targets. Aside from the educational value that having these spaces provides, they also aid in building stronger communities.