By Keeper and Executive Director Tom Hardiman
I am a life-long library lover and have now reached an age when I think I have literally spent half my life in a library of some kind. A few years ago, my lovely wife bought me a new wallet for Christmas. As I was cleaning out the ratty old one I found eight different library cards. I suspect that may actually be sub-par for Athenæum members.
The news in recent weeks has been stressful for library lovers. Two weeks ago, an executive order was issued to defund the Institute of Library and Museum Services. The IMLS has previously funded several long-term planning projects for our Athenæum and it is the primary funding source of the state interlibrary loan system, which accounts for more than 7% of our book circulation and connects us with libraries all over New Hampshire. This week, there was a proposal in the NH Legislature to eliminate the State Library, which runs the interlibrary loan system and provides resources to libraries all over the state, including the Athenæum.
The most incongruous part of the defund movement is that nothing could be more red-blooded American or Live-Free-Or-Die New Hampshire than a library. The first circulating library in the world was started by Benjamin Franklin in 1731. What could be more American than a good ole Ben Franklin invention? And the first tax-supported free library in America was in Peterborough, NH in 1833. The New Hampshire State Library was established back in 1717, by far the first in America. So why are we not proud of leading the country and the world in the dissemination of valuable information?
The chatter I hear from people is either that libraries are obsolete and unnecessary, or that the people who want to defund libraries are evil incarnate. I don’t think either of those views is correct. The former is just some people looking to save a buck or two and the later is a visceral reaction to a threat to someone’s passion for reading. I take an important life lesson from my late father-in-law. When my aforementioned lovely wife was young she sometimes got into trouble and her older siblings would run to dad saying: she’s being bad; she’s being bad! His answer was: No, she’s not being bad; she just needs a little extra love.
So when you hear someone say libraries are obsolete and a waste of money, don’t tell them they are stupid or evil, because they probably aren’t. Just give them a little extra library love and get them to see how important and how fundamentally American libraries are.
Image: View of the Portsmouth Athenæum in Market Square, Portsmouth, NH, circa 1900. Gift of Robert Chase. PS3686.
