Open Writing

“The public library has been historically a vital instrument of democracy and opportunity in the United States,” wrote Arthur Schlesinger Sr. the eminent American historian. “Our history has been greatly shaped by people who read their way to opportunity and achievements in public libraries.”

However, some people think America’s public libraries shouldn’t exist as such, that they should charge for their services. Such thinking leaves me nonplussed. Every year, more than 60 percent of Americans use public libraries, so most Americans value the important roles libraries play.

Imagine our country without its 16,671 public libraries. Besides the aesthetic devastation, there would be economic damage as well. Studies consistently show public libraries are economic engines producing $1.50 to $6 in services for every budget dollar. Yes, nonplussed is the word.

A recent Slate.com article by Ben Yagoda noted the meaning of “nonplussed” has evolved. The formal definition of “nonplussed,” “perplexed or puzzled,” has changed so many current English-speakers think it means “unfazed, nonchalant.”

Using the traditional meaning, I am fully plussed about the folly of suggesting public libraries pay their own way, and my sanguinity is borne out by economic history. The most successful attempt to establish fee-driven public libraries was the Booklovers’ Library established by “serial entrepreneur” Seymour Eaton about 1901. It didn’t last long, wasn’t a real library and was actually a Ponzi scheme.

Eaton targeted “well-to-do, cultured people, people … who can afford to pay reasonable membership fees.” A gifted promoter, Eaton attracted numerous investors who never pressed for operational details about his libraries, which more closely resembled small book stalls. Booklovers soon faltered, and Eaton reorganized his scheme as Tabard Inn Libraries, named after the pilgrims’ gathering place in “Canterbury Tales.”

A sort of Netflix precursor, library members bought books for $5 that they could keep or exchange for other Tabard Inn books. But unstocked shelves, slow deliveries and other undelivered promises made the company go belly-up by 1905.

Those abhorring ignorance should read “5 Myths About the ‘Information Age,’” published in last week’s Chronicle of Higher Education. Is the book dead? “More books are produced in print each year than in the previous year. One million new titles will appear worldwide in 2011.”

The latest figures for U.S. publishing show nearly 300,000 titles issued in 2009, not including 764,448 new “nontraditional books,” like self-published works and print-on-demand.

Has the Internet rendered libraries obsolete? “Everywhere in the country librarians report they have never had so many patrons … The libraries supply books, videos and other materials as always, but they also are fulfilling new functions … Librarians are responding to the needs of their patrons in many new ways, notably by guiding them through the wilderness of cyberspace to relevant and reliable digital material. Libraries never were warehouses of books.”

America is the birthplace of the free community public library. Ben Franklin started things rolling in 1731 by organizing the Philadelphia Library Company, where dues-paying subscribers purchased and shared books. The first such “subscription library” appeared in Britain 25 years later.

American libraries were only for those who could afford them until 1833, when the first tax-supported public library in the world opened in Peterboro, N.H. Until then, “public” libraries were either subscription-based or endowed, and as Stuart Murray wrote in his book “The Library: An Illustrated History,” “Too often local libraries flared up but died out, subject to the enthusiasm or resources of the benefactor.”

Bare-bones “mechanic’s libraries” came next, funded by businessmen to school manual laborers and create more capable workforces.

In 1875, there were 188 public libraries nationwide. Then came Andrew Carnegie. As a boy, Carnegie benefited from Col. James Anderson, a well-to-do Pennsylvanian who allowed local youngsters to use his 400-book personal library. Carnegie swore to repay the favor, and also wanted a more highly-skilled workpool, so he built public libraries in towns willing to support the new institutions with tax revenue. Carnegie spent $40 million and built 1,689 public libraries in the U.S.

He agreed with Horace Mann, who said, “He who never sacrificed a present to a future good, or a personal to a general one, can speak of happiness only as the blind do of colors.”