What Physical Space Means in a Public Library
As far as my childhood self was concerned, the Carnegie Library in my tiny South Dakota hometown was the best place on earth.
Once every week, I climbed its stairs and entered a space that smelled of mildew and oak. Two large rooms stretched off to either side of the librarian’s desk, each subdivided into smaller spaces by old, wooden shelves.
A small table bore videotapes and books from the state library in Pierre, titles that our perpetually underfunded library could not afford to add to its collection but wanted to make available anyway.
I grew up in a very white, very rural world, and the library let me know other lives were possible. There, I encountered books by authors like Ralph Ellison and Maya Angelou, which spoke of a world I had yet to encounter.
