In 1250 BCE, Rameses the 2nd built a library on the Nile.
Over the door was an inscription that read (in translation) “Medicine for the Soul.”
Andrew Carnegie considered that “There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.”
I think that we all hold to the vague notion that libraries are repositories of knowledge and thus should be protected but we seem to forget that they are also public spaces that offer places to meet, to interact, to encounter, with significant health benefits.
It’s no secret that we are increasingly lonely as people, isolated from one another in myriad ways that are reinforced by car-focused urban and housing design, the terrible cold hand of the manipulative algorithms of social media, and so forth.
A recent study in Bradford, U.K., recommended diverting part of the health-care budget to libraries given documented positive impact on health outcomes.
In downtown St John’s there is no single public space allocated to the community where everyone can meet, learn and commune.
Many communities have recognized the galvanising and positive effects that a library “hub” can have on the wellbeing of the entire community.
Witness the magnificent library/learning centre/coffee shop in Halifax, for one.
This is the time to invest in a space that will bring us together in the context of societal fragmentation, incipient populism and the erosion of our basic freedoms.
We need a place to meet each other, debate, discuss, construct and learn, the library is that place.
There is no better investment of our public dollars.
Bill Radford,
St John’s
