Let’s Celebrate National Library Week!

A Roundtable Discussion

Hosted by Ron Block

National Library Week, April 6-12, 2025, is a celebration highlighting the valuable role libraries, librarians, and library workers play in transforming lives and strengthening our communities. This year marks the 67th annual celebration, and the theme is “Drawn to the Library”.

In the Friends & Fiction community there are endless stories about what libraries, librarians and library workers have meant to us and how they have enriched our lives. We thought a great way to mark the week is to start a conversation about this treasured institution. Through the American Library Association, people are being encouraged to advocate for libraries by telling their library stories. We are all fully aware of the power of story, and wanted to begin by telling ours.

Let’s start by sharing what libraries have meant to each of you in your own lives and careers.

Kristy: I can still close my eyes and smell the Rowan Public Library, where my mom took me every week. When you’re a kid, the world is a place of no. No, you can’t have more candy. No, you can’t stay up past bedtime. But the library was always a place of YES! Yes, you can check that out. Yes, you can get that whole stack! Plus, the librarian always knew what I would like–and was the person who introduced me to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, my all-time favorite book and the one I credit for making me a writer.

Patti: There is a small public library in Cape Cod, MA where I spent my summer days as a child. I can put myself back in that place in no time – getting in trouble for having sand in the books, trying to check out more than I was allowed, and feeling like an entire world unfolded in those shelves. The thrill of walking into a library will never leave me. As I always say – they were and are sanctuaries for the soul.

Kristin: Libraries are everything. Where else in the world can you wander in and–for absolutely zero dollars–access worlds beyond the furthest reaches of your imagination? When I was a child, it was libraries that sparked my imagination and my love of reading, and libraries that felt like a home wherever I was in the world. In fact, when I was 10 and we moved from Ohio to Florida, I remember walking into the Pinellas County Library’s North Community Library branch near Fossil Park for the first time and just taking a deep breath in. That library smell–of books waiting to take me away–made me feel like I had come home. Seeing my own book in a library for the first time (19 years ago, when my first novel came out) was one of the most thrilling moments of my career.

Mary Kay: Our family of seven didn’t have a lot of money for books, but the bookmobile came once a month to a shopping center in our neighborhood, and my mother would march all five of my siblings and I onto that truck, and we would each check out the maximum number of books. When my mother explained that my sisters and I were reading well above our grade level, after we’d outgrown the Bobbsey Twins and Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew, the librarians let us check out young adult fiction. Later, once I had my own children, we’d check out audiobooks from the library for long car trips. One memorable trip to Florida we listened to the unabridged BBC production of Treasure Island, which had us all spellbound, and on another occasion it was the unabridged version of The Call of The Wild. Libraries took us places we couldn’t take ourselves, and the trip was priceless.

Meg: The library felt like my refuge. I was raised by a very young single mom on a teacher’s salary. I was a bright kid and an early reader. School was where I felt special. But the library felt like the candy store. In a world where there weren’t a lot of yeses as far as things to buy and trips to take, when I went to the library, it was a different story. I can still picture in my mind’s eye this tan tote bag I had as a child that had the word “stuff” on it in big black bubble letters. To me it was my “book bag.” Just like Kristy said, when we went to the library the answer was never no. I could stuff that bag to the brim. I can still recall the smell of the Wall Twp library at the Jersey Shore and the feeling of sitting on the floor against the bookshelves with book spines jabbing my back as I explored new worlds to escape my own. And the feeling of trundling out of there with my “stuff bag” stuffed to the brim with all the good stuff was like a summer Friday meets the last day of school meets Christmas Eve.

Ron: It warms my little librarian heart to hear all these early memories. In my rural town we weren’t lucky enough to have a local library, so my first experiences were in our elementary schools. Like Meg, I was a very early reader and got special attention from my kindergarten teacher who opened my eyes to everywhere a story could take you. I was a goner when the librarian in our small school library put From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler in my eager hands. My lifelong love of reading, libraries and librarians was cemented as I turned the last page.

We have had numerous conversations and opportunities to be amazed by what libraries do to support their communities and continue to expand their reach to meet the needs of members. What are some of the most surprising things you have learned?

Meg: In my travels around the country on book tours with these ladies I have been amazed at what I’ve learned the library can do for a community. Far from just books anymore, you can check out fishing poles, cooking supplies, gardening tools, audio/visual equipment. Lots of libraries have cool hang-out spaces specially designed for young kids, tweens and teens which I know are a safe haven for many who either don’t have anywhere to go or just want to stay out of trouble. I often go to the library to work to get out of the way while my house is being cleaned, and every single time I go there are several kids—from elementary school-aged, to those doing SAT-prep—being tutored. And some of these library systems around the country—Cleveland, St. Louis, and Jacksonville come to mind—have truly stunning state-of-the-art theater and event spaces enabling them to bring incredible (often free!) cultural programming to their communities. Anytime I hear of planned cuts to libraries it makes my blood boil because I don’t think many have a sense of what would be getting taken away.

Mary Kay: In my travels around the country I’ve really had my eyes opened to the amazing resources local libraries offer. Like the maker spaces we saw in St. Louis and at Cuyahoga. The gardening tools and seeds at the library I spoke at in S.C.. The shelling guides and tools loaned out at Sanibel Library. Cooking pans and canning supplies and cookbooks at several libraries. Assistance with income taxes and resume writing for job searchers. When I was at the Decatur Library near my Atlanta home last week, I chatted with the director who noted all the homeless folks who take refuge there. She has a small supply of warm clothes she keeps for the ones who are cold, and keeps period products for the high school kids who congregate there after school because they have no place safe to go.

Kristin: When I think of libraries, I think of democracy, because so many library branches around the country serve as voting locations. (When I was a child, I remember my mom voting in a library, so I think it has always been tied to that in my head!) But as the others have said, the extraordinary things libraries offer go far beyond that. In communities with lots of immigrants (like here in Orlando), there are often English classes offered, and those make a big difference for people trying to acclimate to a new home. When I was a new mom nine years ago, I found my first community of fellow moms at our local library, where I took my son each week for storytime. Many libraries offer internet access or free wifi, which opens the world up to people who don’t have computer access at home. Our local library in Winter Park, Florida, offers a free recording studio. I have been to libraries across the country that offer awesome regional extras like birding guides, seeds to plant in your garden, fishing poles, and even ukuleles!

Patti: Our local library in Mountain Brook, Alabama provides sewing classes! We have a 3D printing machine, classes and book clubs and craft classes, storytime and education, study rooms for students and readings by authors. Programs for children, teens, and adults. There’s a whole world hidden inside a library. It isn’t just bookshelves anymore!

Kristy: Libraries go so far beyond books now. It’s incredible. A couple weeks ago, for example, a librarian in Sanibel made me a 3D printed turtle to show me this amazing new machine the library has. Unbelievable! But, if I’m honest, some of the things I still love about libraries are the really simple ones. Children’s story time. A gathering place to talk about books. I love how libraries are evolving. But I also love how, in a world of constant change, they’ve stayed the same too.

Ron: Over the many (many!) years I have worked in libraries, I have seen countless changes to what they offer in communities. While the basics always remain, as Kristy said, including physical books, information professionals, story times and places of refuge, they also have become vital for gathering, offering meeting space, study rooms, computer use and technology training. I love that you have all noticed so many cool and unique services and items from around the country. The “Library of Things” as many libraries call their lending offerings, have realized that people look to their libraries for much more than just books. In addition to the amazing things you all have mentioned, the public can also borrow museum and park passes, hotspots for wifi access at home, energy audit kits, power washers, and even prom dresses and interview suits. The possibilities are endless and the gratitude from the public is immense.

I think it can be easily said that Libraries are the lifeblood of the people they serve. They are where everyone is welcome, and are one of the treasured jewels in our communities, our schools, and our lives. So, how do we best celebrate National Library Week? First and foremost is to support your library, your librarians and library workers by taking advantage of their collections — borrow books, movies, music, or “things,” attend an author event, a culinary or craft class, or take advantage of the vast number of online services for all ages. Support can also be shown by advocating for libraries to remain free and open to the public, making sure our elected representatives are aware of the importance of funding these foundations of society. Finally, make a point of thanking a librarian or library worker for all that they do to strengthen our love of learning, books and community.

Now, tell us your library story! What are your early memories? What surprises you most about what libraries offer? Sound off in the comments!

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