Cover story: Libraries go national

It’s the time of year again when libraries all over the country celebrate National Library Week. Every year a week in April is chosen to bring public attention to the importance of libraries in a free society.

Founded in 1876, the American Library Assn. is the largest association of libraries in the world. It acts as mentor to libraries and as lobbyist for intellectual freedom issues. Public libraries, school and university libraries, special libraries and technical libraries are all members of the American Library Assn. But they are not the only ones who have championed libraries and recognized how valuable they are to a community.

One very famous naturalized citizen devoted an enormous part of his philanthropic work to libraries. Born in 1835 in Dunfermline, Scotland, he was the son of a weaver who had lost his trade to the Industrial Revolution. To escape their life of poverty, his mother borrowed 20 British pounds to take the family to Pennsylvania.

He started out in America working as a bobbin boy for a whopping $1.20 a week. Later, by memorizing all the streets in Pittsburgh, he moved up to be the most efficient and sought-after messenger boy in the city. During this time he took full advantage of a small library that a local benefactor had made available to needy, working boys. He also made sure that any deliveries he made to theaters would be at night so he could stand in the wings and watch the plays of Shakespeare.

By the time he was in his early 30s, he wrote, “To continue much longer ? with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the shortest time, must degrade me beyond hope of recovery. I will resign business at thirty-five, but during the ensuing two years I wish to spend the afternoons in receiving instruction and in reading systematically.”

In fact, he worked for 30 more years and when he was 65 in 1900, he sold his company to J. Pierpont Morgan for $480 million. That company, of course, was U.S. Steel, and the sale made Andrew Carnegie the richest man in the world.

One of Carnegie’s favorite sayings was, “the man who dies rich dies disgraced.”

By the time he died, Carnegie had given away $350 million (in 1916 dollars), supported numerous institutions of higher learning, and established more than 2,500 libraries in the United States and around the world.

Because he did not believe in outright charity, but believed the greater good was achieved by helping others to help themselves, Carnegie was particularly dedicated to establishing libraries. Most libraries in 19th Century America were informally organized around women’s clubs or men’s lodges. (In Newport Beach, it was the Ebell Club.) It was very rare for a town to be able to afford a permanent building, even where the books were bought by tax dollars.

Carnegie saw to it that any community that wanted a library building got one.

The town had to dedicate the land and to guarantee that the collection would be supported by tax money. Though the Carnegie Foundation had formulated an ideal layout for a small library, the actual design was a local matter. Still, if you walk into any of the extant libraries today, you will notice that the collection is housed around the outside of the one-story building with the librarian seated in the middle. This was to make it possible for one librarian to oversee.

One hundred forty-two Carnegie libraries were granted in California. Orange County had five of them. Built between 1903 and 1914, the cities of Anaheim, Fullerton, Huntington Beach, Orange and Santa Ana won grants for these charming libraries. Only the one in Anaheim remains and it is now fully redone as a museum.

If one can go from poverty to having more money than anyone, at least in part because of access to a library, then Carnegie was right in giving so that others might read and better themselves. And during National Library Week, it would be fitting to think of Carnegie and all those he helped by giving them access to books.