How libraries changed my life and why we all should defend them by Lucas Rocha

May 26th 2022

I have always been passionate about libraries.

I remember when, in junior high, I used to spend all my free periods in the school’s library, fascinated with the number of stories on the shelves that were quietly waiting to be discovered. I was so in love with the fact that there was a place to which I could go and be received with open arms and an open book that, when the moment to decide what I wanted to do for the rest of my life arrived, choosing to be a librarian was easy. I wanted to spend every single possible minute in that special place that embraced me during my childhood and adolescence, and to be able to hold that space of wonder for others like me.

During college, I realized that libraries were places of refuge in many ways. They were also spaces that challenged the structures of power by holding knowledge and making it available to anyone, what many times was seen as a danger by the ones in charge. I remember a story that one of my teachers used to tell, that during the Brazilian dictatorship, the military would often raid libraries, confiscating for books that they considered “subversive”, and the librarians would use curious strategies, to say the least, to make sure the information in them was available for those who wanted it. The book Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, from the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano – which analyses Latin America’s historical process and the influence of its colonization under the scope of Marxism – was banned in Brazil by the military dictatorship, who didn’t want people learning about their own history, so the librarians indexed it as a medical book, more specifically in the histology studies section of the library. This way, it couldn’t be found in the social sciences section by the military, but the students who asked for it would still be able to access it.

As I finished college and started to work, I realized that my role in society as a librarian was to be a mediator between the collection of books and the people who walked among the shelves. It was my duty to show them all what the libraries have to offer, making it a welcoming place for everyone. To fascinate the children and introduce them to the fantastical world of reading. To show the grown-ups that this place is accessible and exists to be explored and appropriated by them as well.

And, as a writer, I can understand even more the vital importance of libraries. I have this urge to tell stories because I was fascinated by the ones that other people have put on paper and that have nurtured my imagination throughout the years. I have seen how many readers my stories have only been able to reach because they were available in libraries; how many readers have also become writers because of a story that have touched them, just like me.

To be a writer and a librarian has taught me that there’s power in libraries. It has also taught me that there are people who will try to limit this transformative power in different manners, such as silencing or delegitimizing the knowledge they hold. Even if people tell me that libraries are anachronic places, since we’re in the digital age, I defend this institution and its mediators because I know how they can be responsible for change, welcoming people who need a safe place to exist, promoting conversations that are often uncomfortable but, at the same time, can change the way someone sees the world.

We live once again in a time where books are unashamedly banned from schools and libraries, which is a sign that our ideas and stories have the power to promote change. Physical or digital, big or small, local or national, libraries hold more than books, papers and digital media: they hold and share ideas. And nothing bothers more the ones in power than people armed with ideas that can change the world.

Where We Go From Here by Lucas Rocha is out in paperback now.

Download classroom reading notes for Where We Go From Here.