During an especially historic week, the MLA, and its Chief Executive Roy Clare, would like to welcome Barack Obama into office, taking the opportunity to point to his lesser known record as someone who shares a drive and enthusiasm for public libraries.
With the MLA embarking on a library campaign to highlight the vital role of libraries and their changing face – modern libraries for modern users - it’s good to know this view is shared by a man who has been elected to the most powerful office in the world.
In a key speech at a library conference in his home city of Chicago in 2005, Obama described librarians as guardians of truth and knowledge, and thanked them for their role as champions of privacy, literacy, independent thinking, and most of all reading.
“I want to work with you to ensure that libraries continue to be sanctuaries of learning, where we are free to read and consider what we please without the fear that Big Brother may be peering over our shoulders to find out what we’re up to,” said.
Obama went on to describe libraries as “more than a building that houses books and data."
The library represents a window to a larger world, the place where we’ve always come to discover big ideas and profound concepts that help move … the human story forward, " he said.
“Libraries remind us that truth isn’t about who yells the loudest, but who has the right information… At the moment that we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold, that magic threshold into a library, we change their lives forever, for the better. It’s an enormous force for good.”
Later on in his speech he explained the importance of libraries to him on a personal level: “I remember at different junctures in my life feeling lost, feeling adrift, and feeling that somehow walking into a library and seeing those books, seeing human knowledge collected in that fashion, accessible, ready for me, would always lift my spirits.”
Although given at a different time, in a different country, his later comments regarding library closures are particularly pertinent. With the economic downturn upon us, the MLA is highlighting the vital role of library services.
“Libraries have a special role to play in our knowledge economy. Your institutions have been and should be a place where parents and children come to read together and learn together. We should take our kids there more. We should make sure our politicians aren’t closing libraries down because they had to spend a few extra bucks on tax cuts for folks who don’t need them and weren’t even asking for them.”
Throughout his speech Obama highlighted the importance of libraries in creating a space for learning – something the MLA agrees with very strongly.
As part of the new library campaign the MLA will be looking for ‘library champions’ to highlight the importance of this cause, it seems they will be following in important footsteps.
These quotes are taken from an article in the August 2006 issue of American Libraries.
Link to full text of Obama library speech