By: Gabriela Yareliz
Few places held the magic of a library for me when I was a kid. It’s still a revered temple for the mind. A sacred space.
The library, for me, was a place of safety inside of new school after new school. I sought it out, no matter how small. In South Carolina, our school library was an old musty locked up room, with a door that would split open horizontally, the bottom acting like a gate or counter. Sometimes, the librarian would find me on the floor in a corner reading a book that was so old it was almost falling apart in my hands. There was a red cloth book on the history of slavery that I used to read a lot. It was an antique. That thing was definitely out of print. The library was a place of entertainment— I was a magazine girl, so the glossy plastic covered magazines were magnets for me. The amount of magazine quizzes I took with a scrap piece of lined paper and a dull pencil. It was a place of nostalgia but also the new.
I will never forget the library at The University of Florida with the moving shelves. It was pure delight. I was like Belle.
NYC libraries are open during limited business hours. It’s a shame. The impact a library can have on a child or even an elderly person is massive. It impacts the community at large.
In rural areas, libraries were the place where we had limited (and timed) internet access. In a time before smart phones, it was the limited 25 minutes where one could check one’s email. (I remember the timer at the bottom, a countdown). There, I found literature in other languages and foreign films that sparked the mind.
I miss libraries filled with good books. Bookstores were a close second but even that barely exists. In a world of Kindles (which I love) and digital book purchases, we miss out on the library magic. (And book quality has severely declined— character building books are harder to find).
Without libraries, we miss out on the safe spaces that make us better people, explorers, adventures, learners, scientists of life. There is something to be said about the act of sharing literature. It’s a posture. The absence of a good library leaves us with no choice but to build our own home library.
We carve out the space because once you know the magic, life can’t be lived without it.
GABRIELA YARELIZ 