Hey Rahm Emanuel! Libraries Are Sacred Spaces!
Filed under: Education, Media, Society and Economy, Unions
“I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library. For an impoverished child whose family could not afford to buy books, the library was the open door to wonder and achievement, and I can never be sufficiently grateful that I had the wit to charge through that door and make the most of it.” –Isaac Asimov (American author with hundreds of books to his credit)
Probably the best known library of all time was located in Northern Africa. The great library at Alexandria in Egypt was, before its destruction, one of the ancient wonders of Mediterranean civilization. Containing thousands of scrolls, it was the Library of Congress for its day. Its destruction did not come in a single tragic fire, but several, and even historians can’t agree how many fires burned and who set them alight. There was also scroll deterioration plus the inevitable thefts and losses. For the Library of Alexandria, it was death by a thousand cuts.
How much information and imagination was lost? We’ll never know.
For the Chicago Public Library system, its deterioration is proceeding with death by a thousand budget cuts, cuts coming from Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office on the 5th floor of City Hall, following up on cuts made by his predecessor Hizzoner Richard M. Daley. Libraries are especially important in working class communities where people have less income and where educational opportunities are generally more limited. Read more