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South-facing windows invite the afternoon sun the way a door left ajar tempts a midsummer breeze. It was in this light and warmth that children at the Leaburg Library gathered for story time when there was no electricity or heat in the vacant schoolhouse. It’s quiet, not because people are supposed to be quiet in libraries, but because I am the only one here. It’s my first day as a volunteer, and I have unlocked the doors and hung the bright yellow Open sign to attract drivers on the McKenzie Highway,18 miles east of Springfield.
This is a dire time for libraries. When cities like Eugene and Springfield face budget cuts, libraries are among the first casualties because filling potholes is considered more important than reading Shakespeare.
In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting operation of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which distributes federal grant money to libraries. The cutbacks included grants to public school and academic libraries.
In response, the American Library Association issued the following statement: “By eliminating the only federal agency dedicated to funding library services, the Trump administration’s executive order is cutting off at the knees the most beloved and trusted American institutions and the staff and services they offer.”
Trump also fired Carla Hayden, librarian of Congress, and replaced her with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, one of Trump’s former personal attorneys.
Political upheaval has made libraries even more important, says Leaburg Library Director Marty Mealey. Books, she says, not only entertain or educate, they also embolden with stories of hope and resilience.
“You find dreams, fantasies, stories of other people’s lives in books,” she says. “I think we all, especially in these times in this country right now, need something to hang onto. We need some hope.”
The Leaburg Library opened in 1983, moving into a vacant schoolhouse built in 1923. It exists because it is willed to exist. It receives no government funding. Revenue comes from donations and fundraisers. It is staffed by volunteers, and owned by McKenzie Fire and Rescue, which makes it available rent-free.
Almost all its 20,000 volumes have been donated. Some of the earliest books were sent downriver from Blue River because of a teacher named Frances O’Brien and CBS news host Charles Kuralt.
In 1980, Kuralt’s “On the Road” television series told the story of Frances O’Brien, a teacher who started a library from scratch in 1928, setting orange crates filled with books on her front porch. She found that people came at all hours, sometimes bringing flashlights to peruse.
So when she moved a building to her backyard, she kept it unlocked so people could visit at any time. Her library grew and required an even larger building, which was destroyed by the 2020 Holiday Farm fire. The new O’Brien Memorial Library opened late last year.
After Kuralt’s show ran, O’Brien received book donations from all over the country, so many that she didn’t know what to do with all of them, so she donated some of the duplicates to help Leaburg start its own library.
Leaburg has never charged for books or other materials loaned out. It operates on the honor system. Just bring them back when you’re finished. There is no membership fee.
While not offering the programs, services and materials of larger libraries, all libraries face the same challenge: how to remain relevant in a digital age in which a few computer clicks are all one needs to read or listen to a book online or have one delivered to your front door.
As I wander quietly between shelves shared by Dostoyevsky, Twain, Dickens and Dr. Seuss, I feel the solemnity of sacred places. It’s like being alone in a church or cemetery, or on the pitcher’s mound of an empty Fenway Park, someplace inherently hallowed. It is the reverence inspired by such places that we remember — the way they made us feel.
That’s what you miss out on by purchasing online.
Some people don’t care for libraries because they prefer not to read books that have been touched by unknown fingers, fearful of cooties and suspicious of pages stained by blueberry pie or coffee. But libraries are not cheap motels, and I feel a weird kind of richness in knowing others have read the same pages. Back in the day, the names of previous readers as well as the due dates were printed inside the covers, forming a community of strangers.
I always hope to find inscriptions on the inside covers, something like: “To Aunt June. This book reminded me of how I nearly drowned that summer I spent with you and Uncle Fred. Love, Sally.” Even before I begin Chapter One, I have an image of Aunt June and Uncle Fred fishing Sally out of a pond. It’s almost as if they become a character in the book.
You can tell a great deal about a community by the books it reads. One local man donated his library of fishing books, some of them so valuable that they can’t be removed from the building, so he donated his oversized leather chair too, so others could read in comfort. The room is called the Angler’s Roost.
As I walk among the shelves, I’m thrilled to spot “The Soloist,” written by my friend Mark Salzman in Los Angeles. The books are shelved alphabetically by author, and Salzman was one book away from Shakespeare. I took a picture and sent it to him.
“Hooray for small libraries,” he replied. “Usually I’m next to (J.D.) Salinger.
The children’s area is a bright, whimsical room that encourages young imaginations to soar, untethered to life’s gravity. Every person should have a childhood memory of such a place, a romper room for the mind.
Rita Stadel, who, along with the late Ruth Mills, founded the library, remains a volunteer. On a good day, she says, five or six people might come in. “I wish we could get more children here,” she says. “I wish it was utilized more, but I don’t know how to get people enthused about using the library.”
Indeed, it would be wonderful to hear children break the silence with their footsteps and laughter because somewhere on these shelves is a book that might change their lives, just as John Steinbeck’s “Travels With Charley” changed mine, reminding me that most of life awaits beyond the horizon.
Let’s see a pothole do that.
Duane Noriyuki is a retired reporter and adjunct journalism instructor now living among trout, orchids and, more recently, a skunk on the banks of the McKenzie River.
