The New York Times and The Nonprofit Quarterly are relaying an uplifting tale from the West Coast:
NPQ: New book shelves and a technology center of the San Jose, CA, Seven Trees library are ready for business. But the city of San Jose doesn’t have the money to pay for librarians, so the brand new center is shut down. But thanks to a group of volunteers, residents will still have books for their summer reading.
The Friends of Seven Trees has set up an informal book loan operation right next to the closed library. The volunteer group organizes donated books, and residents can take them home.
NYT: Instead of just selling the donated books to raise money, as Friends groups usually do, the Friends of Seven Trees Library also decided to set up an informal book-loan operation.
Now Ms. Hashii, a retired library clerk, keeps a mental list of her readers’ needs as she sorts donations. A man with white hair and thick glasses says he is on the lookout for large-print books. Mothers come to read with their children on the one folding chair in the little space, so Ms. Hashii looks for more picture books. A Spanish-speaking woman is teaching herself to read and has asked for easy Spanish books.
“It’s something the community really seems to be taking to,” Ms. Hashii said.
A community without a nearby library seems difficult to comprehend — which might explain why so many volunteers have stepped up to preserve Seven Trees’ service. And at this stage, no one can say for sure whether the organization will ever return to provide that service again. But either way, community volunteers’ repossession of the library’s work is both uplifting and fascinating. Is it a sign that a supply of books is an indispensable community resource? Were this library (or any organization) not to re-open, would this local and volunteer-driven model be something new to consider? Not for all cases, but for some?