Why the library matters as a humanising refuge for the soul.

Amongst the public services under threat of cuts, and a too easy target for budget trimmers, money squeezers and compulsive cost cutters, are our public libraries. You would expect me to be vocal and verbal about any threat to those opportunities and privileges of knowledge that are essential to the health, life and culturedness of – well, of our culture.

I came across the quotation below (by E B White the novelist) written to the Troy Public Library in the US in the 1960's. One hundred writers were asked to write to the children at the school and tell them what a library is, and what it is for. The library has recently posted all the letters on its website here.

I suggest you click and go read some of them – then email a couple of them to your MP, Councillor, (and the Library staff at your local library – to encourage them).

A library is many things. It's a place to go, to get in out of the rain. It's a place to go if you want to sit and think. But particularly it is a place where books live, and where you can get in touch with other people, and other thoughts, through books. If you want to find out about something, the information is in the reference books — the dictionaries, the encyclopedias, the atlases. If you like to be told a story, the library is the place to go. Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had. And when you are reading a book, you and the author are alone together — just the two of you. A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people — people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.