In a May 25 keynote on the opening day of the U.S. Book Show, sociologist Eric Klinenberg, author of the bestselling book Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life thanked librarians for their work in the wake of an historic pandemic, and stressed that as the nation seeks to recover from a tumultuous year, we will need our public libraries now more than ever before.
"I don't know all the ways we're going to have to build and invest and I can't give you the full catalog of places we're going to need to rebuild to recover," Klinenberg told librarians. "But I will say that, as we start to rebuild, there is probably no better place to begin, there's no better site, there is no better public works project, there is no better social infrastructure that expresses who we are and what we want to be than the library.
"I don't know all the ways we're going to have to build and invest and I can't give you the full catalog of places we're going to need to rebuild to recover," Klinenberg told librarians. "But I will say that, as we start to rebuild, there is probably no better place to begin, there's no better site, there is no better public works project, there is no better social infrastructure that expresses who we are and what we want to be than the library.