Making a Difference

When I went to my book club last week, I was looking forward to discussing the Anita Shreve novel that had been selected, a book that was interestingly written even if the story itself was a little dull for me. The way our book club is set up is that each of us takes a turn talking about what we thought about the book and got out of it, and with the diversity of people there, ranging from a retired German teacher, an old Presbyterian minister, to a local artist, the discussion is always interesting. But what was most striking for me this time was the response to the book from a member of the group who spoke very little about the novel itself. Instead, he talked about how when he lived in California he walked several miles to the library to take out books, how he treasured them, how a handful of books that he had taken out of the library changed his life. It really turned out to be a profound mediation on the power of books to alter a life in the most surprising ways. 

Where I work, it's far too easy to get bogged down in some of the less glamorous details of the job, from seemingly endless paperwork and staying within budget, to dealing with problem patrons who don't seem to want to play by the set rules. It is easy then to miss the larger point of what I do, of what everyone who works in a library does, from the front desk staff, to the children's librarian, to the librarians who work in the background and are rarely seen by the public, like catalogers and other technical services staff. Every librarian, every person who works in a library, from the small public libraries like mine to school libraries, research libraries and university libraries, is making a difference in ways we ourselves may not understand. The story told by the member of the book club last week was a powerful reminder of the fact that what we do changes lives in real and meaningful ways. We often never see the results of what we do in the longer term, as people pass in and out of our libraries and we ourselves transition from job to job, but we should never lose sight of the fact  that what we do has value and purpose. We can never know when a program we run or a book we add to the collection will go on to make a difference in someone's life. 

Lots of authors have talked about how important libraries were to them growing up, including Neil Gaiman and Ray Bradbury, but you need not be a famous writer to have had your life changed by a good library. Growing up in a rural area, devoid of culture and competing viewpoints, libraries for me were salvation from the boredom of everyday life, a place to open and educate a closed mind. My little public library was (and is still!) an oasis in an intellectual desert, staffed and managed by kind, helpful people. I read a lot, both fiction and nonfiction throughout the library, developing a habit which has served me well in the years since. Without that library I can say with near-certainty that my life would be quite different from what it is now, and not in a good way. Things I learned growing up and using that library are still useful to me years later. Working now in a small public library, also in a rural area, I reflect on that from time to time, and it inspires me to do the best job I can do, to provide a little library of quality for the members of this community. Rural areas need, and deserve, good libraries to help nourish those who would otherwise wither without it. It doesn't matter if most of the people coming in only take out DVDs or light fiction reads--we are still meeting a need. We are making a difference in the communities we serve in myriad ways. And for one or two people, what we do just might change their lives.