By April J. Bell, PhD MPH - a proud library kid, an Oakland Library Commissioner, and Assistant Professor at the University of California, San Francisco. She is also a Public Voices Fellow on Public Health with The OpEd Project and Blue Shield of California Foundation.
September is National Library Card Sign-Up Month. Since 1987, the American Library Association has used this month to remind families, students and communities that a library card is the single most valuable free resource in this country.
This year, I’m asking you to do more than sign up. I’m asking you to pay attention to what’s at stake.
Walk into your public library. Sit down. Stay as long as you want. No one will ask you to buy anything. No one will check your credit card, scan a membership code or nudge you toward the register. You can read. You can think. You can rest.
That transaction, or rather the absence of one, is becoming rarer in American life by the day. Coffee shops charge $6 for the right to sit. Co-working spaces require subscriptions. The library is one of the last places in this country where you can simply exist, free of charge, for as long as you need.
That alone makes it worth protecting. But what’s happening inside those buildings goes far beyond a place to sit. Read more on HuffPost.