They’re taking my Chicago Public Library card away?!?
Were you to evaluate the range of bad news in last Tuesday’s Sun-Times, from the death of a courageous, liberal pope to the prospect of an impoverished city of Chicago laying off employees, you might not choose Shannon Tyler’s story on page 15: “E-cards to be discontinued by library.”
Then again, you are not a library geek, like me, who takes his libraries very seriously.
The CPL and I go waaay back — heck, I was involved in the decision-making process that selected the building for the Harold Washington Library Center. (OK, OK, the public was invited to vote on a variety of design options. I voted and my favorite won — I liked the elaborate frou-frou at the corners and didn’t know they made patrons go through a maze to get into the place.)
Then again, libraries tend to make you jump through hoops. But I’m always up to the task. From the British Library in London to the New York Public Library to the Library of Congress in Washington, I’ve gotten in, received library cards, roamed the subterranean stacks, consulted books and, in general, reveled in their bookish splendor.
The British Library gave me a card good for five years. The Newberry Library not only gave me a card but a shelf to put my checked-out books on. And now the best Chicago can do for non-residents is issue a chit good for 90 days, nonrenewable?
Have you ever researched a topic? Ninety days is a start. Ninety days is clearing your throat. I’ve stepped over a book on the floor for 90 days before cracking the cover. These things take time.
I use the CPL website continually, simply because it’s the easiest way to search historic newspapers — the Chicago Defender, the Chicago Inter Ocean. Have you ever read the Inter Ocean? Its reporters were so sharp, I want to disinter their bodies and shake their clawed hands. Even the Tribune archive — in fact, I consult the Trib from decades past far more than I read today’s Tribune.
And you want to take that away? Just because I live in Northbrook? You monsters!
I phoned the library. What, I wondered, have I ever done to you to deserve this? Being besieged by suburbanites trying to consult the Chicago Examiner online, are you?
“We have such a demand,” said Patrick Molloy, director of government and public affairs for the library. “Not so much from the suburban people, as we have people from all over the country and even internationally, creating online cards, checking out ebooks — they’ve got 15 things on hold — and people are waiting a really long time to get ebooks.”
Molloy said more than 1 million Chicagoans have library cards. Meaning that more than 1.5 million don’t. Surely, it won’t crash the system if, say, a person were to grab a couple letters delivered to him at his Navy Pier newspaper office and use those to get a library card.
“Our policy is, your home address,” he said, carefully. “We’ve been pretty lenient in the past.”
That last part wasn’t quite a big Chicago wink. But close enough. Droplets of water will wear away a granite mountain if they trickle long enough.
“This is about making the books accessible in a more efficient manner, about providing better service.” Molloy said. “Our whole thing is about trying to increase access to stuff. It’s not about limiting.”
Great, we’re on the same page then. Someone once asked me the trick to writing books, and I came up with what I thought was an honest answer: You start writing a book and then never stop. You understand that nobody, but nobody, cares whether you write or not; so you care for them. That works for libraries, too. Persistence wins.
Once I presented myself at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France’s Richelieu Reading Room. I didn’t want to consult books, just wanted to see the place, for the most prosaic reason: I’d typed “the most beautiful library in Paris” into Monsieur Google and learned of its existence. I wanted to see.
The guard said “non,” summoning a library administrator who explained that I couldn’t come in. Open only to researchers. Go away. Nicely. In French. But I did not go away. I stayed, implored and persisted, and eventually was ushered in with a Gallic shrug and an invocation not to bother the patrons.
It was worth the effort. Libraries invariably are. I’m glad the Chicago Public Library is improving the experience for its users. I just insist on being among them.
