By Roberta Fabbrocino

For many of us, living through a pandemic has highlighted not only our need for community and social interactions, but also the importance of having access to public infrastructures, services and community resources.  

Public libraries are the kind of "third place" (the spaces that are neither one's home nor workplace, where people can gather and socialize) that we should all have in our town or neighborhood. Whether you spent your childhood reading books loaned from your city's library, or you grew up in the country-side and felt an odd mix of excitement and choice-overload when you first entered one as an adult, you had access to a space filled with culture. A space made for the people instead of for profit, where you could meet new stories and new people, two things that can make one's life so much more enjoyable.    

As places of memories, learning and bonding, public libraries should be cherished, protected and improved to fit the needs of everybody. To celebrate them, let's learn more about their history and their role in our communities.   

The History of Libraries

Humanity has been organizing and cataloging texts in designated buildings for millennia. Some of the most culturally and historically relevant libraries in the ancient world are the Library of Ashurbanipal, established in the 7th century BC in Nineveh, the capital of Assyria in modern northern Iraq, and the Great Library of Alexandria in Egypt, founded sometime between 285 and 246 BC. 

Many of the world's largest current libraries have been established between the nineteenth and the twentieth century, like the Library of Congress (1800), the Russian State Library (1862), and the Shanghai Library (1952).

Public Libraries as Community Builders- Connecting People Through Culture

What is a community? According to the Cambridge dictionary, communities are defined as “the people living in one particular area or people who are considered as a unit because of their common interests, social group, or nationality."

Local communities specifically, are made up of individuals that reside in the same city, town or village. We’re all living in one, but local communities' degrees of health and closeness can variate greatly.

In the second chapter of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network's World Happiness Report 2020, Social Environments for World Happiness, the researchers elaborated on their findings in regards to the impact of our social environment on our happiness. They found that favorable social environments have the power to raise the level of well-being and improve its distribution, making social environments critical players in determining our quality of life.

In this context, it's clear to see how access to public libraries can be crucial in building and maintaining happy, healthy, and tight-knit communities They are places where people can forge trust and create personal social connections. Libraries provide a space for community bonding and multi-generational interactions. Because admission is free, all individuals feel welcome no matter their economic or social status.

In addition, a study investigating the role of public libraries conducted by researchers from Loughborough University found that these public spaces help to reduce the digital divide. Libraries bridge cultural and social services together and act as reservoirs of digital capital. Electronic resources such as e-books, online magazines, newspapers, and digital databases provide free content accessible from home to the people in quarantine and those struggling with social anxiety.

So let’s raise a toast to libraries, for being leaders in culture, community and connection.