Library Card Sign Up

Library cards. Doesn’t everyone have one? Really, do library cards really need to have their own month?

Library cards are one of those ordinary everyday things that I can so easily take for granted. But then, the song rattles me to “make the mundane our masterpiece.”

When I was a child, my dad took me, my brother, and sister to get our library cards at the Mott Branch Library , part of the Toledo Public Library System. I can easily call to mind the smells and textures of every corner of that place, its dark wood fixtures, and the checkout desk planted in the center of the room, dividing children’s materials from adult’s. I can remember my library card that was made of thick stock paper, with my name hand printed in block letters on it in blue ink. It became quite soft and worn, was replaced at least twice, and for years was the only item in my wallet.

I never thought to ask my dad if he ever had a library card. Typically, when he took us to the library after those first few visits, he’d wait in the car for us to renew or return our books, and to select the next books we’d read. Being so fiercely independent since my beginning, I never thought to question dad about why he didn’t come in. I loved being able to explore the space and find my own books.

But my dad… Now, I wonder what was his experience in the library. Did he have a card as a child? Did his school have a library? How did he come to value this opportunity for us? I know my dad passed for white when he fought in WWII, but I don’t know how he maneuvered his hometown. While the history of segregation is well documented in the south, as a northern city, Toledo didn’t practice de jure segregation , but it was de facto and it’s harder to trace. If there wasn’t a library in Black neighborhoods near him when he was a child, then he might not have visited them. I remember in upper elementary school, we’d ask him to take us to the Sanger Branch Library over in the white neighborhood because it had better resources for our class projects.

The fact that my dad took his children to the library regularly, regardless of what his experience might have been, tells us that he valued literacy. He knew that getting us a library card was giving us a key to our future because books would help us learn to navigate the world and to create our place in it. He understood the vast wealth that existed in those books and that library cards provided us with a share of that wealth. The Brookly Public Library gets it: they created JayZ themed library cards to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of hip hop. Think of all the young people who wanted one of those limited editions back in 2023!

September is National Library Card Sign Up month. I’ve always had a library card, always will. I hope you do, too. Indeed, a library card is a not mundane thing. but rather a masterpiece that we need to hold now more than ever.

Be well and do good!

Filed under: Programs/Programming, Uncategorized