The idiom “motherhood and apple pie” has changed. It’s now motherhood and apple pie and libraries.
It changed on April 12 when the Laguna Beach City Council decided that the library grounds were worth buying for $4.29 million, much to the delight of the apple pie foodies.
So the library is “saved,” and everyone can go back to buying books on Amazon.
The actual library can go back to being underutilized with million-dollar views of Main Beach.
The truth is libraries are floundering across the country. Attendance is down because the services are becoming irrelevant. According to a May 2020 American Library Association survey, the majority of libraries are reducing or eliminating staff positions and cutting programs.
It’s not difficult to understand why: easy, better technology. Why go to the library to use the Internet when you can use your phone? In low-income communities, libraries can be essential for those who can’t afford high-speed Internet. In Laguna, that’s not really the case.
With air conditioning and airport-like chairs, the library is a quiet, awkward safe zone for those who need it.
You can play chess or take an English as a second language class. There are attractive magazines and serious newspapers if you want to get your hands dirty.
There are droll students on laptops with earbuds and pajama bottoms. There are elderly people actually reading a weathered hardcopy book. And there are the misaligned, camped out in a favorite corner reading Bukowski.
The talented young Bloomberg writer Linda Poon once said that “public libraries are, in fact, one of the last free spaces in the U.S. where vulnerable populations can seek out unemployment assistance, Internet and computer access, and daytime shelter from the streets; for some, they’re also de facto child-care centers.”
So congratulations Laguna. Now what?
How about thinking ahead to the day when no one goes to the library. Maybe it’s a good idea to start planning for Library 2.0. Some libraries are already trying to modernize by diversifying their services.
They are trying to move boring books out of public locations to free up more space for tech centers, better reading zones, meeting rooms and cultural events.
Instead, the Laguna City Council wants to ink a new 25-year lease with the county to continue to run the library under its Public Libraries system.
How do you think that’s going to go? Have you actually been in an Orange County library recently? Probably not because most people adore libraries but don’t visit.
When you’re in the library it’s hard to tell what year it is – maybe 1972 with spotty indoor-outdoor carpeting and bargain overhead fluorescent lights. It’s worth focusing on the lights. They are the old four-foot blinking tubes jerry-rigged at inexplicable angles. If you listen closely, you can hear that faint, annoying hum that defined middle school.
The good news is you can still buy photocopies for 15 cents – woo-woo. And there is probably a VCR player somewhere if you need it.
OK, we know people love the idiosyncrasies of the library and that two-thirds of Americans believe that closing their local public library would have a “major impact” on their community, according to a 2015 survey from Pew Research Center.
But why? The answer in Laguna is largely nostalgic. Preservation is preferred because it makes people feel safe. People love old symbols, which turn into sacred cows.
Unfortunately, this cow won’t live forever unless it’s resurrected into something new.
