Summer, the Library, and our Third Spaces

Dear Reader,

Soon, college students will move onto summer break, and the school-age kids will follow them in a few weeks. Hopefully, everyone reading this will take time for some form of extended break for leisure this summer - a break from being retired can be leisure for those enjoying their senior years - and perhaps you might find yourself in a library. How about this invitation: Summer in America is a season of possibility. A little cliche? Stay with me here. The days are long, the light stretches past dinner, and the usual rhythms loosen just enough to make you work a little harder to keep your normal routine and habits. So if that is the case, it is a good time to seek an old third space.

Sociologists talk about "third spaces" as those vital places that exist between or beyond your home and your workplace. In the North American past, third spaces were where neighbors met and made the community seem like a community. Where people became regulars, they were known by staff by sight and habit, if not always by name. And I am far from the first to note that those spaces are shrinking; it has become so remarked upon that it is almost a meme. Social media is a counterfeit third space, and I have already given my denoucement of how it sucks you into a void of other people’s imagined problems and insecurities. In particular, coffee shops and ice cream parlors are great, and you should definitely visit your locally owned ones, but you also need a space where no one is selling you something. Even your local hobby shop needs to make money, and you should make sure to patronize them to keep them in business. But libraries are among the underappreciated government services: your tax dollars have given you an ideal third space, if you use it.

Public libraries are more than buildings filled with books. They are the physical manifestation of the belief that knowledge should be available to all who are willing to seek it. It is democratic civics realized by the mere existence of the building. You can walk into a library with nothing but curiosity, and walk out with a piece of the galaxy of wit and wisdom. The library doesn’t care who you voted for, how many followers you have, what car you parked outside, or if you walked. It only assumes that you want to read. Period. Summer leisure is a way to reclaim your attention from the things that don’t actually make you better or satisfied. In a world that constantly tells you what to think, the library gives you the space to think for yourself; you only have to bring yourself and make the time.

It is perhaps surprising to hear, but the first public libraries in the world, as we understand the term, originated in America. It was part of the consequences of believing that self-government required knowledge of the world, so Massachusetts and New England led the way, with Benjamin Franklin donating books to what is now the oldest continuously operating public library in America, in Franklin, Massachusetts, yes, they renamed their town after the founding father, while he was still alive! But let’s be real, Ben Franklin was cool and should have been included in Hamilton. Of course, he helped start the library by donating over a hundred books instead of sending the church bell they wanted for the town; that tracks for Benny. I am not sure about his supposed quip that “‘sense’ was preferable to ‘sound’” as church bells are fun too, but I digress. Let me get back to the point, in 1790, a decade after receiving the books from Franklin, the town voted to make the books available to all inhabitants. By the 1830s, New Englanders were on board with the idea, and during the Gilded Age, the publically minded among the wealthy, like Andrew Carnegie, donated the equivalent of billions to institutions like libraries. Carnegie built 1,689 libraries in the USA out of 2,509 around the world.

When I started grad school at Norwich University, I learned the line that for a historian, “their laboratory is a library.” Now it has been years since those first classes, and I have never forgotten the concept of a library as the place to experiment with ideas and debate with authors’ words. But there is something else about making a library visit a big part of your summer plans: it actually doesn’t require one—a plan, I mean. A big problem with vacations is the planning.

In the modern world, making your itinerary is stressful, it is a pain, you have endless “deals” to consider, and the fear of missing out can be paralyzing. The idea that you need a “vacation from your vacation” seemed silly when I was younger and was not responsible for planning the thing. It is why using travel agents remains a good investment for many people, because you are paying an expert to take that stress off of you. But the library does not require a plan. Just go, wander the history section, or even hit up the historical fiction sections and have a counterfactual adventure. Grab that next mystery and see if you can solve it before the detective. Explore strange new worlds or swoon in the latest romantasy; or look at the latest developments in computer programming or philosophy. Perhaps you will plan that vacation after all, after being pulled in by the travel section. It does not matter, just go, do not think too hard about it this summer. Just go to the library, head toward an interesting section, and grab a book.

Maybe you don’t take it home: swell.

Maybe you devour it there: cool, cool.

It does not matter; that is the point, you do not have to have a complex agenda. However, you could make a date to go to the library before heading to dinner with your favorite cute bookworm. But that aside, the library is a remaining place where all are welcome to go and no one is expecting a performance of some sort. You can find yourself as a reader, discover your next personal journey, and learn the skill you've always wanted. Whatever you do this summer, try to make time to step into a library; the books are waiting for you. And I think you will find that the labor of reading is refreshing.

Photo by Olena Bohovyk on Unsplash