"This is Not a Culture War, It's a Threat to Our Democracy"

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom

Photo by Francesca Grima on Unsplash

I’ve always been a library girl. When we used to visit my grandmother at her house in the Northern Neck of Virginia, there was canoeing and fresh crab and long walks in the woods. But there were also trips to the library with its great big card catalog made of warm brown wood and brass fixtures and the piles of books we took back home to read. There were libraries in my hometown, of course, including a small branch right across the street from the middle school. But my best early library memories took place in southern Virginia until they built the new branch of the Alexandria City Public Library just a few minutes from my house, and just a few more minutes from my elementary school 

I was ten when that branch was built, and had a nice coterie of other little nerd friends who, like me, could not believe the wonder that was this new library. It was huge, with high vaulted ceilings and a big kid’s section and a separate teen section. It had computers and beanbag chairs and meeting rooms. In celebration, we started the Library Club, and on Fridays after school we’d walk to the library and troll the shelves for books to read, hanging out in the kids section until our parents came to pick us up. 

I’ve written often about how I’ve always been a reader, about how, for me, books are both a place to find myself and to get outside myself, a way to explore the world and other people, and to explore myself. There’s nothing quite like that feeling of reading a book and finding a character who thinks the secret things you thought made you weird and different, who asks the questions you’re afraid of asking. The library was where I found queer books, where I wandered by them over and over again until I could make myself pick them up (Maureen Johnson’s Bermudez Triangle and Sara Ryan’s Empress of the World). The library is, yes, where I picked up the first book I ever read with a sex scene, and as you can see I turned out fine. 

At their most basic, libraries are just that, a place to go for access to free books - books that answer questions you’re afraid to ask, books that inspire and entertain, books that teach you a new skill, show you a new place, distract you from a new problem. But in modern life, libraries have become much, much more than that. 

Libraries are one of the few remaining free “third places” in society, places that aren’t work or school or home where you can be in community with others. They are a warm place in winter, and a cool place in summer, often legally, as designated “warming or cooling” centers for when the weather is too miserable to be outside and you don’t have anywhere else to go. Libraries are a place to take your kids, a place to escape from your parents, a place to meet your friends. They often have classes and book clubs and support groups. Sometimes you can check out things that aren’t books, like power tools and cooking or gardening equipment. Per Axios, “Librarians, while still helping kids with their homework, are helping migrants apply for asylum, and jobless people write resumes. Libraries are offering expungement clinics to help people erase their rap sheets, and "digital navigators" to help boost patrons' computer skills. Onsite social workers are assisting people with mental illnesses.” And on top of all of this, and the many other quirks and responsibilities that come with being a space that everyone can enter free of charge, librarians are being trained to use Narcan so they can assist if someone overdoses.

Let’s be honest, it’s too much. 

Of course, librarians were already stressed as libraries are forced to take on more and more social responsibilities while facing devastating funding cuts, like those in New York I wrote about at the end of last year. And that’s not even counting the added stress they face as the focal point of book bans and conservative campaigns to limit access to anything that teaches kids about race and racism or queerness. From NBC News: “Less than two months into 2024, lawmakers in at least 13 states have introduced legislation that could disrupt libraries’ services and censor their materials. The new wave of bills follows a historic year of book challenges, mainly affecting titles centered on the topics of race, gender identity or sexual orientation.” Librarians across the country face enormous fines and even prison time if these laws pass. 

But it’s not just the laws. The rhetoric surrounding book bans and new laws criminalizing what happens in libraries is steeped in paranoia about dangers to children, accusing librarians, teachers, and bookstore owners of being groomers and pedophiles. This kind of rhetoric, we’ve seen time and time again, leads to political violence, from the harassment of individuals to mass shootings. And this for the crime of making sure that kids have access to books that accurately reflect their world and their experiences.

Because this is what libraries are meant to do. Libraries represent the very best of our society, an acknowledgment that access to books and stories and knowledge is so important it must be free for everyone, and an understanding that we are all better off with spaces where we can come together, where we can share knowledge and resources, and where we can give and offer help. Libraries help us protect our culture and record our history, where we can see how far we’ve come and plan for how far we’d like to go. 

If this reflects the very best of what humanity can create together, it only makes sense to build on it - not by piling more and more on our librarians, by forcing libraries to take on more and more social services and responsibilities, but by funding the programs and services that we value enough to champion in libraries but seem unwilling to fight for elsewhere. We can fund community centers, free clinics, community groups, and shelters. We can hire more social workers and community organizers and invest in programs that help people find jobs and apply for citizenship and asylum. We can recognize the importance for kids of having access to books, but also having access to places where they can hang out safely, where they can be loud and noisy and childlike no matter their background, their homelife, or their parents’ bank accounts. 

And we must speak out when libraries are deliberately attacked or destroyed. Amidst Israel’s ongoing and horrific attack on Gaza, libraries, universities, and other cultural institutions have been utterly destroyed. According to a report released by Librarians and Archivists with Palestine, “Along with the complete destruction of the Central Archives of Gaza (which contained 150 years of records pertaining to Gaza’s history) and the Great Omari Mosque (which contained one of the most significant collections of rare books in Palestine), at least 13 different libraries have been badly damaged or destroyed entirely since Israel’s latest assault on Gaza began.” 

Our first priority must be the loss of human life - the tens of thousands killed, including thousands of children, and the famine facing those remaining in Gaza. But if we believe in libraries, in not only the importance of access to stories and knowledge, but also in the protection of culture and history and the value of community, then we have no choice but to condemn this wanton destruction. 

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom says in a statement about attacks on libraries, “This is not a culture war; it’s a threat to our democracy.” And she’s right. Turning away from libraries is to turn away from each other. It is to turn away not just from the stories that help us connect with ourselves and each other, nor just from the spaces where we can learn from each other and build stronger communities. Turning away from libraries is also to turn away from the very foundation of democracy, the right of self-determination, the right to seek and speak for ourselves, and to build the world we imagine together. And if we believe this, then we must believe it everywhere. 

This week, to save democracy, call your representative and Senators, and contact the White House to demand a ceasefire. And then go to the library.