The Seventeenth Line

I love libraries! I have such affection and appreciation for our public libraries. I’ve even created a category here on this blog called Library Love Letters because I want to celebrate libraries in this space.

Libraries do so much good in the community, I think of them as a vital public service.

We know being able to borrow books, audio books, and DVDs is great. Plus, having access to the internet and being able to print paper copies of documents is fantastic. That just scratches the surface of what libraries offer the community.

Take, for example, the Everybody Reads program. This is a community-wide project that offers people a way to have a common, shared experience and then the chance to come together for further engagement.

Here is how Everybody Reads works.

The library provides free copies of a specific book to anyone who asks. The library also holds a number of free programs and events related to the book. The general idea is to bring people together around a common experience, in this case we’re all reading the same book, and provide ways for people to connect with one another.

Community is important. 

Building connections with others, even loose connections, is important. Actually, those loose connections are worth focusing on, especially so given the disruption and disconnection we’ve experienced over the past few years.

Know your neighbors. Say hello to your bus driver. Learn the name of the person who you always run into in the market. It’s rather lovely to see how all of the different people in your city, going about their day in very different ways, intersect and overlap to make up our larger, shared community.

But I digress. Back to books.

I think it’s wonderful when I see someone on the bus or at the coffee shop holding a copy of the Everybody Reads book. It makes it easy to strike up a conversation.

Everybody Reads is a thoughtful approach to building community. This simple, shared common element of a book is a first step to more meaningful connections or to joyful experience.

This year the novel selected for Everybody Reads is Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. I picked up a copy and started reading it this weekend. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Does your local library offer a similar program? 

Please feel welcome to share the wonderful things that your library offers. Hearing about the good things libraries do always makes me happy!