One City One Book

One City, One Book
One question that came up for me during the presentation related to
the statement made “libraries are mainly here to promote literacy”.
I’m not sure that I agree with that. I think libraries exist for many
reasons, perhaps the main one I think of for libraries is a place and
mechanism to give people access to information.
I like how the group pointed out pros and cons of OBOC; I have some of
my own pros and cons regarding it as well. A con is I question how
many people get involved in OBOC who are not already active in their
community. My (perhaps cynical) estimate would be that the vast
majority of people who read and participate in OBOC are the “type” who
already show up for community events. Although perhaps many of these
people are reading something they would not have read before, it
doesn’t seem to lead to anyone attending gatherings on OBOC that they
would normally not mingle with. My feeling on this reflects an
experience I had this past summer. The Madison Public libraries
partnered with Porchlight to have a community read of The Soloist, a
book about a schizophrenic homeless man and the LA Times reporter who
tells his story and befriends him. I was asked to facilitate the book
discussion at the Sequoya library. The group that attended was made
up of 25 white middle-class women, and although it was a great
discussion, I was disappointed at the lack of minorities and
especially at the absence of anyone who was experiencing homelessness.
I had thought about inviting one or two of the people I know who are
homeless, and in retrospect I wish I had. But I guess having these
discussions is better than nothing, because at least we talked about a
subject that most people ignore. However, I hope that people don’t
think they’ve done their civic duty by attending a book discussion
like that, because as long as people are marginalized and don’t have
a place to call home, American citizens have a lot of work to do!
However, as a pro, I do like the concept of many people reading one
book and getting a chance to discuss concepts that might not otherwise
come up. I was not surprised to learn that some cities couldn’t reach a consensus on which book to read. Overall I think that OBOC may be one small part of getting the community more engaged and motivated to facilitate change.