Freedom, prosperity and development of society and of individuals are fundamental human values. They will only be attained through the ability of well informed citizens to exercise their democratic rights and to play an active role in society. Constructive participation and the development of democracy depend on satisfactory education as well as on free and unlimited access to knowledge, thought, culture and information.
The persistence of a professional commitment to the civic role of the library is reflected in library mission statements, including these three, which can stand for hundreds of others:
Pasadena (CA) Public Library: “The freedom to know is the foundation of our democracy. The mission of the Pasadena Public Library, a basic municipal service, is to be an information center for the Pasadena community in order to preserve and encourage the free expression of ideas essential to an informed citizenry.”
Brown County (WI) Library: “The Brown County Library system provides all residents of Brown County access to information and ideas from throughout the world in support of lifelong education, cultural enrich- ment, responsible citizenship, leisure activities, and economic develop- ment. The Library also contributes to this storehouse of knowledge by maintaining information unique to the area and its residents.”
Tacoma (WA) Public Library: “The mission of the Tacoma Public Library is to provide the highest quality library services to fulfill the informational, educational, recreational and cultural needs of the citizens in the dynamic and changing community of Tacoma, which is comprised of many ethnic and economic backgrounds, and further, to recognize changes that occur in society and to adapt these changes to the delivery of people-oriented library services.”
Another measure of the profession’s consensus on the value of the library as a civic institution is the delineation of potential roles from which librarians should select, as expressed in successive versions of the American Library Association’sPlanning Process for Libraries. The ALA National Plan of 1947 stated:
The objectives of the public library are many and various, but in essence they are two—to promote enlightened citizenship and to enrich personal life. They have to do with the twin pillars of the American way, the democratic process of group life and the sanctity of the
individual person. (McCabe, 2001, p. 32)
Recent editions of Planning for Results list “The Commons” as one of the primary roles that a public library might select as a focus: “COMMONS:
A library that provides a COMMONS environment helps address the need of people to meet and interact with others in their community and to participate in public discourse about community issues.” (Nelson, 1998, p. 67).
Today, there appears to be renewed interest in the library as a civic institution. Two successive presidents of the American Library Association—
Sarah Long (1999 – 2000) and Nancy Kranich (2000 – 2001)—selected complementary themes for their terms of office. Long focused on “Libraries Build Community” and Kranich focused on “Libraries: Cornerstones of Democracy.” Both contributed to Kranich’s collection, Libraries and Democracy, The Cornerstones of Liberty, which offered a series of essays exploring how libraries promote democracy, from a variety of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives. According to Kranich:
If a free society is to survive, it must ensure the preservation of its records and provide free and open access to this information to all its citizens. It must ensure that citizens have the resources to develop the information literacy skills necessary to participate in the democratic process. It must allow unfettered dialogue and guarantee freedom of expression.
Libraries deepen the foundation of democracy in our communities. (Kranich, 2001, p. v)
The growing focus on the “civic library” within the library community is matched by new awareness on the part of professionals from other sectors.
For example, the Project for Public Spaces (PPS), a national organization that promotes preservation and design of public markets, parks and squares, has focused attention on the library’s key function as one of the primary public spaces. At a national conference on parks organized by PPS in 1999, I was asked to speak on the relationship between libraries and parks as essential public spaces. Fred Kent and Phil Myrick of PPS, in an article inAmerican Libraries, have stated, “the library is not just a research center but a place for community. Libraries have the potential to become an anchor of community life, even an attraction. Today, many libraries are evolving into multi- dimensional public spaces…a community front porch.” (Block, 2003).
The architectural community has recognized the library both as a symbol and as an instrument for civic and social life. Many architects working on renovating older libraries to include contemporary functions, or designing new libraries, carefully address the need to include public spaces that promote interaction, learning and community collaboration. Architect Carole Wedge, of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson, and Abbott, which specializes in library design, states: “There’s a longing for spaces in which to come together and be inspired…something you don’t get from a laptop in Starbucks.” (Morris, 2002).Demas and Scherer (2002), in their recent article “Esprit de Place,”
discuss the importance of the library as a community space and cite the
“gossip corner” at the Detroit Lakes, MN, Public Library as an example of a
“space for local citizens to meet informally—much like the agora of ancient Greece.” Moishe Safdie, internationally recognized for his design of the Vancouver Library as the focus of a multifunctional “Library Square,” cares deeply about the relationship between libraries and the urban context. Safdie
describes the library as “not only a library but a major meeting place for the city—another city center.” (Malouf, 2003).
In political science, libraries are the subject of analysis by experts such as Robert Putnam, a leading theorist on trends in civic engagement. Robert T. Putnam and Lewis M. Feldstein, a collaborator in the study of civic culture, recently publishedBetter Together, a compilation of stories about key institutions. Their chapter “Branch Libraries: The Heartbeat of the Community,” focuses on the Near North Branch of the Chicago Public Library as an exemplar of “The New Third Place.” “As our glimpses of the branches in Chicago show, the new neighborhood library functions as a kind of community center, a place where people get to know one another, where communities find themselves.” (Putnam and Feldstein, 2003, p. 49). Putnam and Feldstein also discuss the unifying value of the library, its inclusive and tolerant stance toward all, as an aspect of its value for local communities.
They consider this unifying role as “one of the Chicago Public Library’s core missions: to reflect and serve the diversity of the city’s residents while helping those residents discover the sympathies and interests that unite them.” (p. 54).