Just as I was pondering the column topic of the public library as a valuable entertainment resource, articles popped up online with an interesting result from a recent Gallup poll that sought to learn the most visited entertainment destination for Americans. It’s not major sporting events, movies or concerts.
Instead, and by a whopping margin, it’s public libraries. “Visiting the library remains the most common cultural activity Americans engage in, by far,” reads the report on Gallup’s website. “The average 10.5 trips to the library US adults report taking in 2019 exceeds their participation in eight other common leisure activities.” Library visits are basically double that of the second-most popular – going to a movie at a theater.
At a time when there are many public signs that literacy is in rapid and distressing decline, this is heartening news.
I just came back into the library system in my city of residence, Austin, Texas, following decades of not patronizing the library. When I was a kid in the 1950s and ‘60s, I was a regular library-goer and book borrower. It was also one way to get out of the house in the evening that my parents, both avid readers, approved of. (Confession: as I grew into my teens it was a useful lie to enable other activities.)
As an adult, I found having to revisit the library to renew books to be challenging, and racked up late fees. That led to me no longer borrowing books.
But now in the digital era, I can renew books in a snap online. I can also find books I want to read and place them on a list or put then on hold to be delivered to my local branch in a matter of days. The convenience has stepped up my reading.
Our local library’s website also offers access to periodicals, newspaper archives and more. Here in Austin we’re blessed with a library that has numerous branches and recently built a cutting-edge new central library designed to embrace modernity and its role as a community center. It offers actual books as well as eBooks and audiobooks, It has an extensive collection of films and TV series on DVD and music on CD and vinyl.
The Austin library has a quite full and varied program of events and meet-ups. Many magazines and periodicals are available onsite. There are also computers that are connected to the Internet. One can print and copy documents.
Even as the pandemic has closed down public spaces, the digital revolution has helped libraries continue to serve the public. The Austin library’s website allows me to reserve books and have them delivered to my local branch. I drive there and park in a designated spot and then call inside. A librarian checks them out and, properly masked, brings them out to deposit with social distance into the trunk or rear compartment of a vehicle. They also wisely quarantine all returned books for two weeks.
Libraries are a precious cultural and social resource, especially in this time when ignorance, propaganda and mistruths are so rife. They serve as a bulwark against such trends.
Much as I appreciate the digitization of catalogs and functions, there is a downside to it. Old library card catalogs contained much valuable information, starting with the basics about every book to notes added by users and librarians. As many libraries went digital, the cards were summarily disposed of. In the process, some books have become lost. Both losses are a shame.
But I’m heartened as the library returns to my life to learn how popular they remain. They are truly great populist institutions.
TV Special: “The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU” – Now in its 21st season, the show is television’s longest-running drama. Fans – count me as one from the start – will enjoy this well-deserved salute/
Book: “The Castle on Sunset: Life, Death, Love, Art, and Scandal at Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont” by Shawn Levy – An engrossing history of the unique hotel on L.A.’s Sunset Boulevard that has been for most of its 90 years been a bohemian enclave outside the Hollywood system.
Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email orca@prismnet.com.
From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2021
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