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“Everything Will Change”: A Chance to Shape the Library’s Future Tuesday, September 16, 2008
It is easy to see a public library as a quaint vestige of a bygone era, as a reminder of the forms that community organizing and participation took in a pre-Google, pre-coffeeshop, pre-Amazon era.
It’s tough to tell when things changed, at what point libraries stopped shaping us as thinkers and learners and importantly, as artists. What is clear is that today we find public libraries around the country, Chattanooga included, lacking in up-to-date materials, underused by all levels of society. It can be purely romantic, if not unrealistic, to love a library these days, all things considered.
But shouldn’t the library have a chance to grow up, as we all have, shaped and nurtured by this community? Shouldn’t the library be able to benefit from our years, our travels, and our hopes for Chattanooga, and from the possibilities it has enabled in us?
This Thursday night, a public meeting will be held to discuss the future of libraries in Chattanooga. Organizers want to know what purposes libraries successfully serve today, and they are manifold, and in what ways they can become innovative tools in a community with increasingly sophisticated, unique needs. Everything can change, and everything will change.
Bring your ideas to the Read House, located at 827 Broad Street in Chattanooga, on September 18 at 7pm. For more information, visit everythingwillchange.org
By Veronique Bergeron
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