City must prioritize library restorations

Two years later, Harvey-damaged libraries are still struggling — that punishes all of us.

As the rains of Hurricane Harvey threatened, the staff of Baldwin Boettcher Branch Library hustled to raise books off the ground and move as much as they could away from windows. The precautions did little good.

Stormwaters rose over 8 feet, sloshing past the gate surrounding the brick building just outside the Mercer Botanic Gardens, drenching computer monitors and books, warping ceiling tiles, leaving a muddy film over everything.

Two years after Harvey, the building stands empty.

Walls are stripped down to steel studs, floors are bare and windows covered with a ghostly coat of dust.

There are plans to rebuild Baldwin Boettcher — one of four Harris County Public Library branches that were closed due to severe damage from Harvey and the only one that has not reopened — but it’s unclear how long that will take, said interim assistant branch manager Victoria Knauff.

In the Houston Public Library system, Harvey’s floodwaters ravaged at least 12 branches, leaving behind sodden carpets, splintered roofs, ruined foundations and creeping mold. Five buildings were repaired and reopened within 30 days, even though they continue to grapple with recurring leaks and water issues.

Seven others had more substantial damage — of those, six remain shuttered. At least two of the branches — Meyer and Lakewood — will move to new buildings now in the planning stages.

Why does this matter? Because libraries are more than buildings, more than repositories of books.

They have always been gathering spots and centers for study.

They contain doors to different worlds for those of us who grew up without the money to travel and keys to the future for children just starting to dream of adulthood.

“The library is a gathering pool of narratives and of the people who come to find them,” writes author Susan Orlean in “The Library Book. “It is where we can glimpse immortality; in the library, we can live forever.”

These days, they are also vital sources of services for corners of our region that are all too often underserved.

They provide Wi-Fi hotspots in places on the wrong side of the digital divide, computer access for job hunting, citizenship classes, tutoring, safe spaces for children outside of school and a plethora of activities from coding and crafts to reading clubs and robotics.

In the summer, of course, Houston libraries are a respite from the blazing temperatures.

Losing a library is like plucking the beating heart from a neighborhood — especially as more and more public schools cut library services. According to the American Library Association, 39 percent of public schools don’t have a full-time librarian.

That’s why it is worth taking a moment to appreciate the role libraries play in our communities — and to applaud the city and county library systems for continuing to serve patrons even as officials untangle the knot of Federal Emergency Management Agency and funding issues needed to push repair efforts forward.

At Baldwin Boettcher, a compact corrugated metal shed — dubbed the Little Blue Library — serves as a temporary site inside Mercer Gardens. It holds only 2,427 books, compared to the 57,589book capacity in the old building, but librarians can request selections from other branches. There are also reading clubs for teens, storytime and activities for younger kids, and a summer meal program for children and their caretakers.

The Little Blue Library doesn’t have computer access, but it does offer a Tool Library, where patrons can check out shovels, rakes, trowels, shears, wheelbarrows and other gardening equipment.

Harvey-affected branches in the Houston Public Library system have also made use of temporary sites in community centers, neighborhood parks and local YMCAs. The HPL bookmobile, which carries a few hundred books, has been supplementing services in neighborhoods still without a full-service library.

The patchwork set-up is far from ideal — and city and county officials must continue to make repairing and reopening libraries a priority.

However, the responsibility for keeping libraries alive and relevant doesn’t stop there.

A 2016 Pew Research Center poll found that about 69 percent of Americans think libraries provide a safe space for young people. Those polled also gave libraries high scores in creating educational opportunities, sparking creativity and teaching technology.

Yet, one in five people responded they had never visited a library at any point and only half had visited a library in the previous year. One-third said closing a library would not have an impact on their personal lives.

In an era of rampant misinformation and growing media illiteracy (a recent Stanford study found that 80 percent of middle schoolers can’t distinguish between sponsored content and a legitimate news story), that’s not only disturbing, it’s dangerous.

“If you do not value libraries, then you do not value information or culture or wisdom,” the author Neil Gaiman said in a 2013 lecture. “You are silencing the voices of the past, and you are damaging the future.”

It’s up to all of us to keep libraries at the center of our civic fabric and to make use of their services. They have long helped nurture informed, educated citizens — and we need that now, more than ever.