EXCERPT FROM THE INTRODUCTION [...] When I joined the staff at Oakland Main in 2000, I experienced a joyful revelation. Having the opportunity to work in that particular library, to get to know its collections and the building intimately, and to be able to pass on an appreciation of books and a love of knowledge was a source of tremendous pride. I saw my labors there--the reference work, the public programs, the exhibits, the personal interactions--as a way to give back to the place that had given me so much. The Main became home, a place of discovery, respite, collaboration, and power. I found that working behind the reference desk at Oakland Main was akin to working in a new and foreign culture. Not only were the information systems different from those found in the university library, even ones as basic as the two small libraries that I had worked in, but the people who used the public library were different. People from all races, classes, ages, cultures, and abilities. As I became familiar with their personal, academic, recreational, and professional curiosities, it felt as though I was meeting my fellow Oaklanders for the first time. I could not have guessed how wide and deep their interests and intellectual pursuits ran. The public library, I quickly discovered, was also a challenge to my sense of order, to my understanding of how society works, how we engage each other or fail to. I gained a better understanding of our schools, city government, and Bay Area history and culture. My appreciation for Oakland's diverse and complex civic life, its artful heart, and working-class bona fides really developed during the years I worked at the Oakland History Center, the Main Library's research unit that serves as the city's unofficial archive. Being responsible for so much history inspired me to elevate my commitment to the work. Archiving, I learned, is freighted with a deep responsibility, as it provides access to an understanding of our society. By preserving the materials that tell us what has been, archives chart a course for our future. Their importance cannot be overstated or taken for granted. What does today's public library mean to people? If I ask any random passerby their opinions of the public library, it's a safe bet that most responses will fall into three general categories: ■ Surprise: "People still use the library? I haven't been in a library since grade school!" ■ Adoration: "I love the library! I use my public library all the time." ■ Repulsion: "Ewww! Libraries are full of homeless people. I wouldn't think of going in one." The American public library has been eulogized for decades now. Nearly thirty years ago, the internet launched a cultural revolution that seemed to place ye olde public library squarely in its crosshairs. Swarms of doomsday prophets rose up to announce its impending death. They proclaimed speed, volume, and global reach of information as the internet's main advantages over the public library with its archaic typed card catalogs and miles of dowdy, dusty three-dimensional books. But the public library has played the long game, evolving and even thriving in spite of all the negative forecasting. This evolution resulted from planning, professional introspection, community input, controversy, and politicking. As the public's needs, skills, and interests have expanded, public libraries have had to reassess their value to their communities, challenging and motivating librarians as never before. When I began my career at the Oakland Main Library at the beginning of this new century, I found a well-resourced forest of information from which everyone could find intellectual nourishment. Staffing was robust. The public kept us busy all the time. I often thought about what lucky people we were to be paid to shepherd people to a building full of books and other information, inspire them to read, and, in the bargain, expand our own horizons by learning new things every day. It hardly seemed like work at all. And yet, despite all that busyness, I found it to be in an existential crisis. The chief concerns that I saw percolating were not just financial or spatial but philosophical. The question that hung in the air during my years there was, How do we, as the city's flagship library, stay relevant to the community and current with emerging technologies, and maintain the collections we've had for generations? Addressing this question was as important as the reference work. The library was evolving, and as with all evolution, there were periods of swift and disruptive change that resulted in tension, confusion, expansion, and reduction. The public library, ours and thousands of others across the country, was (and is still) being asked to be so many things for so many people. Early in my tenure at the Oakland Main Library, I began journaling and writing essays about the public library as a civic institution, workplace, and public commons. A library is "a metaphor for a collaborative society," according to writer Hisham Matar. The library is where members of the community meet one another, and we play out our roles as citizens. I had been a member of some public library for over thirty years by the time I arrived at Main, but I didn't really know it at all. What I found was fascinating, instructive, disheartening, and a source of pride. Librarianship is a venerable and nimble profession filled with people committed to educating, entertaining, supporting, and uplifting our communities. In the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, workers around the world had to respond to extraordinary circumstances by changing where and how they worked--to pivot, as we now regularly call it--which is something that American public libraries have done for nearly 150 years. The public library is our country's last truly democratic institution. It welcomes at no cost any and all regardless of their social or economic status, race, cultural background, gender, citizenship status, physical ability, literacy, or age. No other publicly funded institution actively caters to so many people. It is not just its demographic representation that makes it democratic, but the steady work that goes into maintaining its pledge to serve all over time, as needs, culture, and funding shift. The library's health is reflective of how well our country is faring. Because of its benevolent mission to serve all, and this country's tendency to lean conservative, the library has always been subject to controversy. It has weathered discrimination, budget crises, mandated loyalty oaths, labor strikes, and many other challenges. Yet it persists. When I retired from the Oakland Public Library in December 2021 after thirty-eight years as a librarian, twenty as a public librarian, I left a profession that had provided me with great personal and professional satisfaction. I had realized many of my goals and achieved much more than I had ever planned. The years I worked as a public librarian in Oakland were my quid pro quo, paying back some of what the library had given me. Library work made me a more astute reader, a capable public speaker, a skilled researcher, and, more important, a more compassionate and engaged citizen. As one of the country's oldest and most cherished public institutions, the library has tremendous power to impact our social and economic opportunities as well as our cultural understanding. It is our democracy in action. Still, to many people the public library's operations, aims, and values remain largely a mystery, which impacts public support. As I write this, public libraries across the country are being challenged by those who seek to ban the literature that libraries have always made available to us. Not only are books and other materials being disputed and removed, but librarians themselves are being demonized and personally threatened with legal action, dismissals, and even violence. Under a second Trump administration, state, school, and public library funding has been drastically cut, denying needed services to both rural and urban communities. People need their libraries now more than ever. Our public libraries play an important role by promoting literacy, a most basic survival skill for both children and adults. It is in this milieu that I write this book. Part memoir, part institutional history, this book is my tribute to the Oakland Public Library, especially the hardworking Main Library staff who keep the place afloat, to the patrons who keep the work interesting, and to librarians across the country who uphold the promise of free-doms that public libraries offer anyone who crosses their portals. Excerpted from Behind the Desk at the Main: A Memoir by Dorothy Lazard All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
