Libraries as Community Centers, Carnegie Style

Lisa — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:24:01 -0700

Carnegie Library, Braddock, Pennsylvania 1908
Originally uploaded by Orchard Lake

Lately, I’ve been taking advantage of the mild weather by riding my bike to work. It takes me about half an hour, and I work up a sweat. Fortunately, there’s a shower in the library boiler room—arguably the creepiest shower since Psycho. I mean, you’re in the basement, in the boiler room, and it’s kind of dark, and the boiler’s making weird noises, and there’s a freakin’ hole in the floor right next to the shower that probably reaches all the way down to an alligator-infested sewer… But the water’s hot, so it’s all good, right?

Anyway, besides scary Hitchcock movies, the shower always reminds me of the Carnegie library in Braddock, Pennsylvania. Built in 1889, the Braddock Library was the first Carnegie library in America. Andrew Carnegie had it built for his steel workers—many of whom might have appreciated better pay and working conditions, but hey, in the words of Carnegie, “It is the mind that makes the body rich.”

When I visited the Braddock Library for one of my college classes, the most memorable sight was the shower stalls in the library basement. The library was designed so that workers from the steel mills could come to the library, grimy from a day’s hard work, and wash up before going upstairs to use the books. A hot shower was a luxury most workers’ own homes did not include. Nor was the library just a building full of books. It included a gymnasium, a bowling alley, a swimming pool, and a music hall.

Music hall, you think, okay, that’s cultural. But can you imagine a library today having a gymnasium or a bowling alley or a swimming pool, much less all three?

More than a hundred years later, public libraries are still defining themselves. Are libraries more about the collection or about community? Can they be both without cheating one or the other? We see this in every argument over whether video games are an appropriate activity to offer our patrons. Likewise, knitting circles, movies, Pokémon tournaments, rock concerts…

Andrew Carnegie was one of the first to treat libraries as true community centers. If he thought duckpin bowling belonged in the library, I’m sure he wouldn’t have said no to MarioKart. (In fact, here’s an interesting article about how the Homestead Library, another Pittsburgh-area Carnegie library, is adapting its century-old, community-minded mission and facilities to fit today’s needs. Not as much has changed as you might think.)

Say what you will about Carnegie as a steel boss, he was truly the “Patron Saint of Libraries,” having funded over 2,509 of them between 1883 and 1929. He also founded the university I’m proud to call my alma mater. Let’s carry on his legacy by making our libraries more than simply giant, brick boxes for books.

Posts on gaming

Libraries as Community Centers, Carnegie Style