I hang out at libraries, even when I’m not looking for a book

We had an hour to kill. None of the trendy microbreweries were quiet enough to have a real conversation. My friend wasn’t hungry; I couldn’t stomach more coffee. I suggested the library.

“Like, hang out there? At the library?” Her laugh implied I was silly, naïve, or both.

I’ve spent most of my life hanging out in libraries.

I grew up being able to walk to the Thomas Raddall in Clayton Park. My visits frequently coincided with English classes for new Canadians. I sat in stacks of books, embracing the freedom to pick whichever I liked, and eavesdropped as they learned to pronounce hard As. This tradition continued as my second home moved and became the Keshen Goodman, but now we all had a cafe, a place for people to sit and chat instead of reading textbook sentences.

I was young when I went to the consultation process for that library, but I saw requests come to life. The library had always given me the power to shape myself, but now I felt the other side of freedom, as if I had built the new breakout rooms with projectors. When, at 13, I was given bus tickets and permission to use them, I would spend Saturdays headed to the Spring Garden Road branch or sometimes Halifax North Memorial just to go somewhere new but immediately familiar. North is freedom, uptown down home…

Although I love taking out more novels than I can read, I have a personal mission to fight the attitude that libraries are reserved for the bookish. The most important part of public libraries isn’t the “library”—it’s the public. For all the books I’ve taken out, I’ve spent summer afternoons sitting on the benches outside, eating foodtruck fries and using wifi to watch baseball on a laptop, then an iPad.

Technology changes but libraries can always be relevant. In addition to loaning out tech, staff can also teach you how to use it. These are just a few of the skills libraries have to offer. HRM’s robust programing can teach you a variety of things, from hobbies like painting to how to do your taxes, for relatively little money, if not for free. I used to think I’d like to see more services based in the library; now I realize I just want to see people use them more.

I visited Cleveland during the US government shutdown. I thought the municipal library, which I of course had to visit, had picked up some slack in providing services but I was corrected. Information about health insurance, vaccinations and taxes were always a prominent feature. I saw why when my East Cleveland-based cab driver complained that Rush Limbaugh told him Obamacare was going to kill the elderly like him. I suggested a few websites for more fact-based information.

“I don’t waste money on the internet.” My privilege took the form of a deep flush as my partner handed him materials he had taken from the main library branch and nearly begged him to go visit and check out a site called Google which would confirm what his local newspaper, heavily subsidized by advertisements from fast food industries, wouldn’t—that his inkling that more exercise did lower the risk of heart disease was entirely correct. He was incredibly smart and very well- read. His issue was access.

Libraries are information warriors fighting the digital divide that can be caused by age and income. As I travel up and down the province for work I’m always certain to check out the frequently old, frequently brick buildings in many places too small for much else. I have now been to most of them, and they have more in common than what sets them apart—invaluable access to programs and information that can shape the communities they sit in. The new Spring Garden branch will open in 2014 and will not look like a traditional library because it will not act like a traditional library. Most libraries don’t anymore. I urge you to spend a lunch hour in one instead of a Starbucks and see if you don’t learn something, even if you don’t pick up a single book.

Allison Sparling
is a communications person who once gave her father Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 for his birthday. He never forgave her. She thinks there are a lot of good things about Halifax and goes to the library every week.

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This article appears in Mar 20-26, 2014.