For children and teenagers, libraries help instill an ethic of responsibility, to themselves and to their neighbors, by teaching them what it means to borrow and take care of something public, and to return it so others can have it too … Libraries stand for and exemplify something that needs defending: the public institutions that—even in an age of atomization, polarization and inequality—serve as the bedrock of civil society. If we have any chance of rebuilding a better society, social infrastructure like the library is precisely what we need.
Perhaps Mr. Klinenberg is still able to visit public libraries where these qualities remain dominant. But there are signs that this traditional conception of the public library is changing, as librarians are caught up by the same wave of “woke” progressivism that is affecting other sectors of society.
