The Giving Quilt (16 page)

Every June, as soon as schools closed for the summer, the Friends of the Library held a barbecue in a park adjacent to the library to kick off the Summer Reading Program. That year, in addition to food and games and music, partygoers were also treated to a display of eight marvelous quilts created from the children's drawings and fabric selections—their very own sunflower series. Children who knew that their favorite librarian had been working on a top secret project dashed over to search the quilts for their own familiar flowers, shouting or squealing with delight when they discovered their artwork transformed into quilts. They pointed out their flowers to their parents, their teachers, their friends—even to Linnea, who knew each one by heart and had written the young artists' first names by their flowers with an indelible fabric pen.

Throughout the afternoon and evening, the quilts were offered up in a silent auction. Naturally every parent and grandparent wanted the quilt that their favorite young artist had contributed to, and the bidding became fiercely competitive. Linnea had hoped that the quilt auction would be a rousing success, but even she was astonished when, after the auction ended and the library director collected checks from the winners, she discovered they had raised more than eight thousand dollars for the local food pantry.

“This is what libraries do,” Kevin said later that night as they enjoyed a celebratory glass of wine on their patio. “They're assets to the community. They
create
community.”

“I know,” said Linnea contentedly. Her “Great Artists” program had succeeded beyond her fondest wishes, and fears that she might be fired over the radio debacle had slipped to the back of her mind.

“
We
know, but I'm not so sure the community does.” Kevin looked as if he anticipated the sudden flash of insight that always preceded the creation of a brilliant marketing plan. “We need to tell the city council what exactly the library contributes to Conejo Hills. Not just rosy, idealistic anecdotes of children falling in love with books and teenagers having a safe place to go after school and adults taking classes on how to use the Internet. Those are all worthwhile endeavors,” he hastily added when Linnea was about to interrupt and tell him so. “But the city council and all your detractors need to see, in black and white terms too, what the library gives to the community.”

“This sounds like a job for an expert in creative marketing,” Linnea remarked.

Kevin nodded firmly. “My thoughts exactly.”

Putting his lackluster job search on hold, Kevin met with the library director, the Friends of the Library board, and several patrons who volunteered their expertise in everything from accounting to finance to law to urban planning. They rallied public support for the library with editorials in the
Call
, a spirited web campaign, and a mailing drive in which library patrons, young and old, were invited to create postcards with an image of their favorite book on the front and a brief message explaining why they loved the library on the back. Linnea set up tables where the
Starry Night
canvases had been, replenishing them with trimmed card stock and art supplies nearly every other day. Before patrons mailed their postcards to city hall, Linnea photocopied the most moving, adorable, creative, and amusing creations and displayed them on bookshelf endcaps throughout the library. Nearly every patron who saw them wanted to make one too, and some who found it too difficult to choose only one favorite book or only one reason to love their library made many postcards. Linnea did not see every card or read all of their messages, but she hoped and prayed that the impact the postcards made upon the mayor and the city council would be at least half as powerful as it was for the library staff. In such times, it was profoundly gratifying to hear from their loyal patrons how much the library meant to them, how they sincerely believed it transformed their city into a community.

On the day the city council convened the special public hearing on the budget crisis and the future of the library, Linnea and Kevin walked into city hall surrounded by library staff, Friends, and patrons, and Linnea felt that they had prepared as well and as completely as anyone could have done.

The main room and even the gallery of the council chambers were filled with restless, eager citizens on both sides of the debate. People who wanted to speak had been required to register beforehand and were instructed to limit themselves to five minutes. The library director was the first to speak, and she listed the many tangible services the library provided to city residents, including services to the vision impaired, citizenship and English as a Second Language courses for new immigrants, computer and Internet access for those who could not afford it in their homes, and more, much more than could be described in five minutes.

The president of the Friends of the Library Foundation spoke next. She passionately evoked the democratic principles upon which the nation was founded, praising the egalitarian nature of the library, for anyone regardless of wealth, gender, age, color, religion, education, or status could pass through its doors and gain access to its wealth of information and resources. “Franklin Delano Roosevelt called libraries ‘the great symbols of the freedom of the mind, essential to the functioning of a democratic society,'” Alicia declared. “Libraries and librarians are essential to a healthy democracy because they ensure that everyone—
everyone
, not merely the privileged and the powerful—can gain access to information and thereby become informed citizens and voters. Without this access, people may not know what their elected leaders are doing on their behalf, or what candidates are promising to do, or what the consequences of a proposed measure might be for themselves, their families, and their neighborhoods. This is especially important for the poorest among us, those who can't afford books or newspapers or home computers or high-speed cable Internet. A healthy democracy cannot endure if only the wealthy are aware of and engaged in the process of governance while the poor and powerless are left uninformed and uninvolved.” Alicia's penetrating gaze traveled along the high bench where the city council members sat impassively, and then she turned to take in the entire gallery. “Believe me, my friends and
mis amigos
, we should all be wary of any powerful group that wants to keep the poor ignorant and disenfranchised.”

A smattering of applause and cheers and a low rumble of disapproval greeted her as she stepped away from the microphone and returned to her seat—head held high, expression proud and defiant. The mayor banged the desk with his gavel and called for order, warning that any further outbursts would be grounds for expulsion.

Next the leader of the fledgling Conejo Hills chapter of Close the Book, California took the podium and used her five minutes to denounce the inclusion of “filthy, age-inappropriate” materials in the library's collections. “Libraries must be safe places for children and young adults, who make up a significant percentage of library users,” she said, pounding a forefinger onto the podium for emphasis. “If offensive books cannot be kept out of the reach of patrons under eighteen, then we demand the librarians institute a warning-label system using the same codes that are used for television programs, movies, and video games. If warnings are considered essential for those media, why not for books?”

Linnea had a sudden vision of herself seated on the floor of the children's department surrounded by piles of books taller than her head, reading each one; evaluating the content for references to sex, violence, drugs, and swearing; and slapping each cover with a color-coded sticker—green for innocuous Sandra Boynton board books, fiery scarlet for
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
. Scarlet stickers would become a magnet for curious teens, whose rebellious streaks would guarantee heavy circulation for any scarlet-stickered book.

“Did she help us or hurt us?” one of the Conejo Hills reference librarians murmured. Linnea figured it was anyone's guess. The woman hadn't called for the library's closure, but she hadn't exactly championed it either.

A man who looked to be in his early forties took the podium next, and he spoke briefly and angrily about how high taxes were destroying the economy. “I don't use the library, so I shouldn't have to pay for it,” he declared. “If people can't speak English, they shouldn't take a free class at the library—they should go back where they came from.” Someone in the gallery above shouted out in agreement, and the mayor banged his gavel. “Libraries have become after-school day care centers for smart kids and hangouts for homeless people. I shouldn't have to pay for that. If people want to buy books or computers, they should get a job, save their money, and buy them. I don't work forty-plus hours a week to subsidize some other guy's access to free books.”

Linnea sighed as the man returned to his seat, nodding and raising his hand to the gallery in acknowledgment of their support. She never understood how people like him failed to realize that everyone benefited when their neighbors were educated, informed, and involved. Some people just couldn't think beyond the walls of their own homes.

Another, calmer man followed, and before he ran out of time and was required to step down, he offered a lucid explanation of how much money would be saved, and how few jobs would be lost, if the library were closed. To her dismay, Linnea observed several of the council members leaning forward in interest as if to catch every crucial fact and figure. Two council members were so engrossed that they forgot to maintain a veneer of impartiality and nodded from time to time.

“His figures seem questionable,” Kevin murmured close to her ear as he rose and joined the queue to speak. When it was his turn, he presented his own cost-and-benefits analysis of the library, clearly and objectively. The council listened attentively, and Linnea was proud and relieved to see just as many, if not more, minuscule nods in response to his presentation as the earlier speaker had received.

It would have served the library's cause well if the public hearing had ended with Kevin, but a few more people spoke on both sides of the argument, most reiterating points that had already been made. The last to speak was a young man with dark, curly hair wearing black-rimmed, rectangular glasses and a UC Santa Barbara sweatshirt. Linnea straightened in her seat, expecting to hear the voice of youth advocating the library's cause, but the young man's appearance was sadly deceiving. “Libraries are obsolete,” he began, spreading his hands as if stating a universally accepted fact. “Everything worth reading is on the Internet now. See this?” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a smartphone. “I can get more classic novels and references on this than I could ever read in my entire lifetime. In twenty lifetimes.” He paused to shake his head. “I've lived in Conejo Hills most of my life, and yeah, I came to Saturday Story Times when I was little, but the world has moved on. Conejo Hills is broke. The whole country is broke. We just can't afford obsolete information stores anymore. We shouldn't keep these dusty relics on life support for sentimental reasons or because it's tradition, especially when everything we could possibly want to read is online.”

Linnea longed to interrupt him to correct his error-strewn remarks, and she felt the librarians and library supporters around her tensing as they fought the same impulse. Not everything was online—far from it—and not everyone had access to the Internet in their home. Oneself and one's friends never accurately represented a diverse community. Why were comfortable young adults always the first to overlook that?

“My generation is online and the generations coming after us will be too,” the young man continued. “We're three generations removed from people who actually needed physical libraries. We learn and think and consume information different than people of the past. If you want children to be prepared for the new economy, you'll teach them to use e-readers and forget about obsolete paper technology.”

“If he says ‘obsolete' one more time,” Alicia muttered, “I'm going to stand up and scream at him.”

Linnea patted Alicia's arm to advise patience and restraint.

“Also, all this talk about libraries creating community misses the point of today's reality,” the young man said. “Community doesn't happen in a big public building anymore. It all happens online. I have hundreds of friends, and I don't have to be with them in person to have community. People of my generation are the future, and we should have a big say in the budget because the consequences will affect us much longer than it will affect you.”

Because the rest of us are old and creaky and teetering on the edge of our graves, Linnea finished for him silently. This young man had attended Saturday Story Times, perhaps during her tenure. Where had she gone wrong?

The young man leaned closer to the microphone as he glanced around the room. “Sorry to be so harsh, but that's the way I see it. Thank you.”

He left the podium to a startling crash of applause.

“The blindness of the privileged,” exclaimed Alicia, incredulous, her words barely audible in the din. “It will be generations, if ever, before everyone has their own personal access to the technology he takes for granted. How can a college student be so unaware of how most of the world lives?”

Linnea could only shake her head.

The mayor announced that the time allotted for the public to address the chamber had elapsed, but they would review all written remarks as long as they were submitted before five o'clock. Linnea, who had said all she intended to say, wanted nothing more than to go home, crawl under a quilt, and rest until the city council reached a judgment.

For a week the mayor and city council met in several lengthy sessions closed to the public. Rumors raced through the city like capricious winds, shifting, ephemeral, and ever changing. Linnea refused to heed any of them, doggedly going about her usual routine. They would know the library's fate soon enough.