When Toni Morrison was a teenager in Loraine, Ohio, she was hired by the only library in town. She started each shift shelving books. The job didn't pay well, but Morrison said it was magical. Then she was fired. In a talk given at the Queens Public Library, she explained why:

The trouble was that instead of replacing the books on the shelves, I kept reading them. A title would catch my eye, I'd crack the book open for just a quick look, and pretty soon I'd forget the stack of returns. I didn't get far in my career as a librarian, but that experience opened my eyes and shaped my future.

Annie Dillard, author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, also loved to read. She was raised in the Homewood section of Pittsburgh, a largely Black section of the city. Her mother drove her to the Homewood Library, which had "FREE TO THE PEOPLE" carved into its facade.

Dillard was 12 when she received her adult library card. She wrote about the large vaulted rooms, the high leaded windows, and the cool floors. One day, on a bottom shelf, she discovered The Field Book of Ponds and Streams. The author described how to make nets, set up freshwater aquariums, mount slides, and label insects on their pins. The book obviously affected Dillard, whose book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek details a year observing nature while living alone in a small cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Roanoke, Virginia.

Dillard, who was white, said her greatest shock came at the end of the book. She found the library card. "My hearty author and I were not alone in the world after all. With us, and sharing our enthusiasm for dragonfly larvae and single-celled plants, were, apparently many Negro adults." She marvels at being joined with people, unknown to her, who nevertheless were part of a reading community.

The author, Richard Wright, also wanted a library card, but he was living in Memphis in the 1920s, and city library was for whites only. In his autobiography, Black Boy, Wright explains how he approached one of his white fellow workers at the optical company where he worked and explained his problem.

The worker, an Irish-Catholic, was supportive and lent Wright his library card. Wright then forged notes naming books he was supposedly picking up for the white co-worker, and a whole new world of reading opened up.

Our daughter Rachael's introduction to the library was not as difficult. We simply walked to the Alameda library a few blocks from our apartment, applied for a children's card, and borrowed some books from the children's section of the library. Grandson Gavin's card is from the Chico library.

I love libraries. One of the first things I did when we moved to a new town was drop in at the local library to register for my card. In addition to Alameda, I have patronized town libraries in San Jose, San Leandro, Danville, and Fairfax. I even managed to get stack privileges at UC Berkeley's Bancroft library. Bancroft's reading room resembles a cathedral.

I also like librarians. They are knowledgeable about all sorts of subjects, they are patient, kind, and in a good humor. They are almost always female, and, as is true of so many occupations dominated by women, they tend to be underpaid.

Lovers of libraries like me owe much to Ben Franklin and Andrew Carnegie. The first organized lending library was started in Philadelphia in 1731 by Ben Franklin and a few friends. Members paid a small subscription fee and were then allowed to borrow books. That first library became a model for the thousands of libraries across the country.

Andrew Carnegie, a ruthless steel magnate, believed that rich people's children should not inherit their parents' wealth. He used his money to endow hundreds of libraries across the country, including 142 in California and 59 in Pennsylvania. One of those Pennsylvania libraries was in the Homewood section of Pittsburgh, where Annie Dillard found her field book of ponds and streams.

~ Roy Christman