One of my favorite radio things to listen to is KQED’s Forum program, hosted these days by Alexis Madrigal, a worthy inheritor of the tradition established years ago by Michael Krasny, a polymath with whom I took a class at San Francisco State University back in the 1980s. I also was fortunate enough to have been invited by Michael to be his guest on Forum following the publication of one of my books, in 2004.
Yesterday’s Forum was on the topic of public libraries, and their role in our ever-changing society. Alexis’s interviewee was a retired library director, and he asked her how libraries have changed in her decades of experience. When she was young, she explained, libraries were quiet, solemn places, like churches, but that nowadays libraries necessarily reflect the society at large. They’re not quiet anymore (my local library, the Lakeshore brand of Oakland Public Library, includes children’s classes). It also includes services for poor people. That includes free use of computers and free wifi. On any given day, there are people there who seem to be running their own businesses. They talk on their phones, not always quietly, and they sit at the reading table, which I use to read newspapers.
Having someone sitting next to you, conducting a business conversation, is not what I think of as a quiet, solemn environment in which to read and think. One afternoon, a few weeks ago, I got really irritated by all the noise. A woman was babbling loudly into her phone, with no regard to the rest of us. I finally left, but on the way out I asked a librarian about it. She hesitated for a moment—I sensed this was not the first time someone had complained—and then she said, “Sir, the mission of the library has changed.”
I didn’t have to ask her how the library’s mission had changed. It was evident. Libraries, at least in Oakland, now are daycare centers/homeless shelters that people can uses for home offices, or just to sleep in a cozy chair. Some of these people, to judge from appearances, are homeless. For free, they can request use of a laptop, and there seems to be no time limit for such use, nor does there seem to be any requirement to not disturb other patrons.
This is of course in keeping with the “values” of Oakland, one of which is to be inclusive of poor and homeless people above all other priorities. It’s why Oakland is so reluctant to roust homeless encampments, and why the police are put under such insane restrictions when it comes to controlling illegal behavior, and why the rest of us are guilt-tripped when we complain about the deleterious impacts of all this.
When, exactly, did the library’s mission change? Why was I not informed? Were you? Who made the decision, and why? Call me old-fashioned, but changing the library from a temple of quiet reading and contemplation into Homeless Shelter Center is a bridge too far. If the city of Oakland wishes to provide general day benefits for the indigent, on city property, then let the city pay for it.
I suppose this is one of those intractable dilemmas Oakland seems unable to resolve. Yes, it sounds noble and compassionate to open the libraries to the homeless. But is it really a step in the right direction, or just more progressive nonsense? In my view it’s another example of our city’s deterioration.
Steve Heimoff