Libraries will save the world.....so let them

I grew up with little money to go around. Both my parents worked/lived paycheck to paycheck. We weren't destitute but eating out/vacations/the latest and greatest toys were not something that happened all the time. Enter the library.

Every week like clockwork, my mom took my sister and I to the El Cajon library or on the weekends we might feed the ducks at Lindo Lake and stop at the Lakeside Library. We would spend hours there all of us in those stacks picking out as many books as we could carry. As an adult I still remember that feeling. I felt so wealthy leaving the library with my stacks of books to dive into. The library doesn't care how much money you make. There are no income requirements to use the library. The library only cares about providing a safe space to house books and people. The library cares that you have a library card and will take care of the books they loan to you. I have always loved to read so going to the library as often as we did was the best part of my childhood and instilled in me how critical, how vital, how NECESSARY libraries are to any community they serve.

Libraries level the playing field. EVERYONE has the same access. As a child I only partially understood how important this was (I was mostly interested in how many books I could check out!). As an adult, it is crystal clear how valuable the library is. How much they do for the community. It is so much more than books.

As an adult I am still at the library as often as I can (so is my mom). Santee Library is my home library and I can never walk in and NOT walk out with a book.

I challenge anyone who doesn't "get it" to walk into a library, any library, to see the depth of the roots they have in their community.

Beyond serving the community, they are the protectors of knowledge, the answerers of endless questions, the keepers of the texts, and throughout history we have seen time and time again just how crucial this role is and how greatly it needs to be protected AT ALL COSTS.