Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Will Gates Be for Romanian Libraries What Carnegie Was for US Libraries?


Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library. The only entrance requirement is interest. 
- Lady Bird Johnson

In the U.S., the term “Carnegie library” connotes civic mindedness, high purpose, and distinguished architecture. A philanthropic project initiated in the 1880s by Scottish-American steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, this library construction program helped establish public libraries as welcoming institutions in hundreds of communities across the United States, Great Britain, and Australia.  In the U.S, they were usually easy to spot – sturdy and appealing structures near the town square, with graceful stairways leading to a prominent front door. Their open stacks and central checkout desk invited the curious to browse, guided as needed by a friendly librarian.  On family trips as a girl, I often heard my father point to them with some reverence as we drove by. Lady Bird Johnson probably had these institutions in mind when she commented about the library’s democratic nature.
As astute a businesswoman as she was a first lady, Mrs. Johnson might have added that one of the public library’s democratic functions is career development for individuals and economic development for communities – want advice on how to find a job, start a business, get something done? The library is the place to start.     
            In Romania over a century after the Carnegie project was well established, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is making its own mark on libraries through the Global Libraries program, which supports projects in dozens of countries. Called Biblionet here, the program provides computer equipment and training in its use for librarians around the country. Bihor, the county (or judet) in which I live, was one of the first parts of Romania to earn the right to participate – though the program will eventually include all of the nation’s counties, it’s a competitive selection process and Bihor applied early. (The county also did well last summer when scores on the nationwide test given to graduating seniors were announced; no doubt there is a connection.)
            When expressing enthusiasm for the program to Romanian friends, I am apt to make a comparison between the Carnegie and Gates programs. And, if the former enhanced local communities’ efforts to build or expand access to libraries in the United States a century ago, might the Gates program have a similar effect here?  As we live in a less reverent age, it’s a difficult question. 
For one, the Gates endowment is for technological infrastructure not architecture, it’s not as easy to romanticize about the former. But for an American used to the convenience and accessibility of U.S. public libraries, the potential is equally inspiring. The current state of many libraries I have seen here is at best dismaying, but as the Gates Foundation’s funds are tied to local contributions as much as the Carnegie funds were, that the program has attracted such competitive interest is a good sign.
            My introduction to Romanian libraries came about in part because of my interest in another distinguished American of Scottish origins – John Dewey.  Wanting to know whether educators here were interested in his work, I sent a note to a Dewey list serve.  Soon I had a reply in my inbox from a Romanian woman working on a doctorate at the University of Illinois, which hosts one of the U.S.’s shrinking number of library schools. And she just happened to know another equally energetic librarian in the city of Oradea, not far away from where I live. Soon my new Romanian friend and I were also exchanging emails, and within a few weeks had made a date to meet at the Bihor library, where she is in charge of distributing books to the 55 libraries in the county.
            She also heads the county’s Biblionet program and maintains a valuable blog that supports other progressive endeavors – like volunteerism, city reading programs, and the national environmental cleanup campaign.  Through her, I’ve had a valuable introduction to the strengths and challenges facing Romania’s libraries – and lessons in how far they have to go to become as much an asset to their communities as the Carnegie libraries have been in United States.
            But that is a story too long for one blog post, so it will be continued in another.

© 2010 by Connie Goddard
           

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