The Library Book

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2018

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-16

Chapters 17-20

Chapters 21-24

Chapters 25-28

Chapters 29-32

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

Libraries as Community Institutions

Central Library provides many key services that its patrons might not otherwise receive. Moreover, those services are free and available to everyone. Orlean explores how, as a result of providing not only free books to borrow but also services, such as access to the Internet, adult education classes, ESL courses, and workshops on consent for teens, the library is an indispensable community resource. It provides information that many patrons wouldn’t get in public schools and training that one could usually only obtain for a fee.

The library is also a social equalizer. It is the only place outside of a homeless shelter where the homeless are welcomed. There, they sit beside people from all social and economic strata and enjoy access to the same resources. In this way, libraries represent some of the most appealing ideas about democracy—that is, that everyone should have equal access to education and equal opportunity to achieve self-improvement. Despite the inequalities in public education and the elusiveness of higher education for those who don’t have high incomes, the library exists to provide resources when other institutions fail to do so.

Fame and Collective Memory

The desire for fame is no more than the desire to be remembered. What both Harry Peak and many writers shared in common was a wish to be remembered, to leave an imprint on humanity. Peak, like the many writers whose tomes occupy Central Library, satisfied his desire, though not in the way he originally intended. Orlean uses Peak’s story to address how the pursuit of fame is rooted in a need to be loved. Peak, who felt alienated from his family due to his ambition and homosexuality, sought community and admiration from strangers. When he could not meet these goals, he sought attention in whichever form he could get it—even as a criminal suspect.

Peak’s desperation to be remembered correlates with Orlean’s desire to remember cherished childhood moments with her mother at the Cleveland Public Library. Orlean reveals that, in the midst of writing The Library Book, her mother descended further into dementia. Writing this story helped Orlean reconnect with her mother and, through those memories, she reconnected with the library and her love of writing. For Orlean, the library wasn’t a repository of famous writers but of ideas that patrons could experience and reexperience over time. Books can also contain memories, as LA Library Foundation president Ken Brecher revealed when he opened a book and smelled the scent of smoke left over from the 1986 fire. This realization connected Orlean more deeply to books and libraries and gave her a newfound sense of their importance in the Internet age.

Books, Libraries, and the Internet Age

One of book’s most key themes is its exploration of the library’s development in the Internet age. The Internet has made it far easier for libraries to maintain vast quantities of curated materials, such as Central Library’s newfound map collection, in online databases, thereby freeing up space within the building. The Internet has also presented the question that Orlean initially raises in the book—whether libraries are still necessary.

Central Library was among the first libraries to go online in 1994. Meanwhile, Cleveland Public Library, where Orlean spent her childhood, was the first to adopt e-book lending through the online service OverDrive, which was launched in Cleveland. The service made it possible to access books on smart devices, making it less likely that people would visit the library to acquire the materials that they need. The irony of this development is that the young people who are most likely to download e-books are also the most likely to say that libraries remain a social necessity and contain materials that cannot be sourced elsewhere.

The result of this social survey provides an answer to Orlean’s rhetorical question. Libraries will not likely become mere gathering places in the near future, and e-books will not displace actual books. If anything, the Internet has made it easier to use libraries and has made it possible to acquire more materials and to do so more quickly than in the past. This is an instance in which a technology that has occasionally been perceived as a threat has resulted in the expansion of products and services rather than rendering them obsolete.