Dear Editor,

Dale Porter’s letter recounting the genesis of the Nederland Community Library 20 years ago was an excellent first hand account of grass roots civic entrepreneurship. Public libraries are a perfect example of how vital non-partisan civic institutions are to the healthy functioning of democracy. As in Nederland, the history of libraries in America more broadly is a story of grassroots entrepreneurship, community engagement and egalitarian ideals. 

Public libraries, like so many institutions in America, were born from the communitarian impulses of a small group of people who decided to solve a problem by founding a startup. Their ideas eventually went viral and spread to hundreds of communities as America expanded. Thanks to funding from philanthropic angel investors, libraries ultimately became a ubiquitous component of American communities, and a cornerstone of the services municipalities and counties provide to their constituents. Community libraries today are civic incubators, philosophical accelerators, co-working spaces and part of our voting infrastructure.

It all started in colonial Philadelphia. In 1727 Benjamin Franklin, then just 21 years old, started a civic club called ‘Junto’. Franklin had just returned from a stint in London where he learned the typesetting trade and experienced a flourishing coffeehouse culture, which was spreading Enlightenment ideas across Britain. Typesetting was the Internet of the 18th century, enabling ‘pamphlets’ and newspapers to reach mass audiences for the first time. Franklin was keen to surf the waves of change unleashed by this burgeoning technology.

Like the book clubs we frequent today, Junto was meant to foster the intellectual improvement of its members. In characteristically American fashion, Franklin’s startup was nicknamed the ‘Leather Apron Society’ since it was a working class endeavor. The membership was composed of “aspiring artisans and tradesmen who hoped to improve themselves while they improved their community,” Franklin wrote in his autobiography. The problem for Junto’s aspiring philosophers was that books were expensive, and none of them could afford a ‘gentleman’s library’. 

To solve the problem of access, the group resolved to pool its resources so that “the contribution of each created the book capital of all.” In 1731 they formed the Library Company of Philadelphia. Its charter required each member to pay a subscription, which funded the acquisition of books. Members could then borrow books from the collection without cost. And as early as 1741, however, nonmembers were also allowed to borrow books on the provision that they left a security deposit to cover the cost of what they borrowed.

The Library Company was founded on the idea of pooling resources to reduce economic barriers to knowledge, and it debuted the premise of broad public access. Temporal relativism must be applied to that description, of course. In 18th century America, ‘public’ did not necessarily include women or people of color. Having acknowledged that, the concept of broad public access to educational resources was uniquely American at the time. Libraries had existed for centuries, of course, but their resources were always restricted to the landed, titled and moneyed elite. The only other libraries in the 13 colonies in 1731 belonged to aristocrats, members of the clergy and private colleges. 

The Library Company of Philadelphia grew and eventually moved to Carpenter Hall in 1773, where it subsequently helped to birth the new republic. In 1774 the First Continental Congress met at Carpenters’ Hall, and the Library Company extended members’ privileges to all the delegates. The offer was repeated for the Second Continental Congress and again when the delegates to the Constitutional Convention met in 1787. The Library Company effectively served as the unofficial congressional library until a new capital (Washington) was established in 1800 and funding was approved for a permanent national collection. 

The step of creating a federal library didn’t really change the historical inaccessibility of higher learning. Although it serves as a ‘de facto’ national library today, the resources of the Library of Congress are still primarily for Congress. The library is open to the public, but only high-ranking government officials and library employees may check out books and materials. Like Lotus 123 or Internet 1.0, neither the Library Company nor the Library of Congress fully realized the potential civic utility of community libraries. In fact, the next tax-supported, public library in the United States didn’t appear until 1833, in Peterborough, New Hampshire. However, America’s first public libraries provided a template by showing how broader access to knowledge would benefit society, and that public support of libraries could help reduce asymmetry in education. 

In 1876 The American Library Association was formed, The American Library Journal was founded, and Melvil Dewey published his decimal-based system of classification, by which most library collections are catalogued even today. The components of a truly public library ecosystem were present, except for the funding to make it happen. Ultimately, private philanthropy drove the viral explosion of community libraries in the 19th and 20th centuries more than government action. And it was America’s unique brand of unfettered capitalism that provided the fuel.

Philanthropists such as Henry Tate and Andrew Carnegie provided the seed funding to build much of the community library system we know and enjoy today. Obscenely successful at winner-take-all capitalism (Tate in the sugar trade and Carnegie in steel), these ‘robber barons’ devoted enormous resources to the creation of a global network of community libraries.  A total of 2,509 ‘Carnegie libraries’ were built with donated capital between 1883 and 1929, including 1,689 in the United States, 660 in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and 125 in Canada. Carnegie’s public / private development model stipulated that communities had to provide sites for the libraries, and local governments had to provide for maintenance and staff salaries. This ensured that the libraries would be a part of the community and continue to receive funding after the initial donation. 

The private / public financing model also imbued community libraries with another characteristically American trait - adaptability. When the Internet arrived in the 90’s and Google Books started digitizing millions of printed works to make them browser accessible, many assumed libraries would fade from relevance. Yet libraries have evolved and become even more relevant to their communities in the digital era.

Philanthropy again played a role in facilitating adaptation to the digital age. In 1997, the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation launched its first major philanthropy - the U.S. Library Program. This entity donated more than 25,000 PC’s to community libraries and trained 7,000 librarians in computer literacy. Adaptations like this helped make libraries instrumental providers of public access computing, Internet and digital information, particularly in low-income communities.

Of course, Covid-19 has forced libraries to adapt yet again, challenging their ability to host patrons indoors. Throughout the pandemic, the Nederland Community Library and the Gilpin County Public Library have continued to offer digital access to ebooks, virtual book clubs and other socially distanced programs. Nederland’s Library also innovated by offering curbside pickup and home delivery options to maintain access to catalogue materials. 

The enormous impact of temporarily losing the ability to visit your library in person is a testament to the central role these institutions now play in our civic lives. Originally viewed simply as ‘book repositories’, libraries now provide so much more than books to the communities they serve. They provide broadband access, literacy programs, critical resources for homeschooling families, and meeting spaces for the civic entrepreneurs of today. They still bring us together for ‘mutual improvement’ just like the coffee house culture Ben Franklin admired 289 years ago.

Derek Ridgley
Nederland