Editor’s note: This article was initially published at Freep.com.
By Frank Witsil
Detroit Free Press
When Disa Bryant needed a place to live, she found a home away from home at the Detroit Public Library.
Libraries have long been repositories of knowledge, mostly through archiving and lending books, and places to go when school is out for the summer. In an age of the internet and Amazon, communities are trying to do more with these institutions as Bryant — and other residents — turn to them for help.
Now libraries are helping people find housing, jobs and start new lives.
Bryant credits the Detroit library’s Parkman branch — a place she visited as a young girl with her aunt — with saving her when she was homeless: Librarian Annette Lotharp told her about a housing program and put her in touch with a counselor who found her shelter and, within a year, her own house to rent.
“It was a sad story, initially, but then, it ended up being a happy ending,” Bryant said as she told her story in a quiet corner of the stately branch off Oakman Blvouard in Detroit. “The library had a big part in my success.”
Bryant — who is divorced and raising a teenage daughter — said she did her best to make ends meet. The 51-year-old graduated from Mumford High School, attended Marygrove College and Wayne State, and worked a variety of jobs, mostly temporary positions in customer service.
Still, the single mother said she also suffered from ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease that would flare up and make it difficult to work
In 2015, she said she got sick, missed too many days at the Detroit Employment Solutions Corp., and lost her job. She said she fell behind on her property taxes, lost her Russell Woods house, and moved in with her sister in Redford Township.
Then, she became depressed. But, the library, Bryant said, gave her a place to go.
At the library, she said, she and her daughter could both study. Bryant focused on getting a college degree, which she said she eventually earned from ITT Technical Institute. Her daughter got help with her homework. Bryant also used the internet to look for, and find, a job.
“You could stay all day,” she said. “That was such a godsend to me.”
In many cities and communities — especially during the summer — libraries are places where residents go to cool off; check out books, movie DVDs, and music CDs; gather for meetings, and learn a new hobby.
But, in the past decade, libraries have been trying to offer more experiences that they couldn’t otherwise afford or know where else to get: Assistance applying for jobs and finding places to live; classes on how to read and use computers; and access to live music and expensive artwork.
When American libraries started nearly 300 years ago, books were the focus because bound publications were expensive, rare and difficult to get, said Pam Smith, president of the Public Library Association in Thornton, Colo. For the good of society, book owners lent their treasures.
By the 1900s, steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie decided that libraries were essential. He used his money to build more than 2,500 libraries, including the Detroit main library and 60 others in Michigan. He believed books could give ordinary people the knowledge they needed to work.
Now, there are nearly 119,500 libraries — including public libraries, academic libraries, school libraries and government libraries — in America, according to the American Library Association, a Chicago-based nonprofit.
To thrive, Smith said, public libraries need to offer more than books.
“If we are a warehouse for books, that is one thing,” she said, emphasizing libraries can — and already do — much more for communities. “But, I think the future for being a warehouse is not so great.”
The American Library Association noted a shift from print to digital services in a 2014 report “The State of America’s Libraries.” It said that in the year before the report was published the number of visitors to libraries had declined 5 percent, but the visits to library websites had gone up 5 percent.
The report also identified a top priority for libraries: Enhance what it called “community engagement” to address “current social, economic, and environmental issues,” through partnerships with governments and other organizations.
In other words: help people who are struggling.
Nationwide, some libraries have gone as far as employing full-time counselors to help do this.
In March, the Public Library Association conference in Philadelphia held a session, “A Social Worker Walks Into a Library,” with presenters from libraries in Washington D.C., San Francisco, Denver and Georgetown, Texas, that had hired social workers.
“One of the questions people ask is: In the age of the internet, Google, and Amazon, is there a role for the public library?” Smith said. “I give you a resounding yes.”
This summer, the Detroit Public Library — through the main library on Woodward Avenue and selected branches — is offering students in kindergarten through the third grade a six-week reading program.
It is one of many programs and scholastic activity that libraries offer to assist families that can’t afford summer camps and enrichment programs that research shows help students from forgetting what they learned during their time off from school.
Sixteen children from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday at the Parkman branch have started the reading program, including 5-year-old Aunica Stephens.
The branch also is offering youngsters free lunches, arts and crafts classes, a reading program for older children, ballet dance lessons, and sessions to teach kids and adults how to use and program computers.
The director of recruiting for the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office, Keith Williams, even stops by to entice older teens and adults into careers in law enforcement.
For some families, the lure during the summer heat is even more basic: air conditioning.
“It’s so good for the students,” reading teacher Nikita Hopkins said. “This is more like a community hub.”
On Wednesday, Aunica Stephens, the youngest of four siblings, took a test to see what reading level she should start at. She sat at a round table with her mother, Carolyn Stephens, and two reading specialists with the Detroit Public Schools.
As part of the test, she went through a book with large print, “Follow Me, Moon.” It had some deliberate mistakes in it that she was supposed to identify: paragraphs that were printed upside down and words that were misspelled and out of order.
Later, she was asked to write down certain words.
In purple marker, she printed: “come,” “stop,” “no.”
After the test, Aunica played a computer game. She used the keyboard to direct a Dora the Explorer, a Nick Jr. cartoon character, to virtually kick a soccer ball into the goal, a fun exercise that could enhance her hand-eye coordination.
“What I get out of it is that the more you read to the kids and the more you allow them to read, the better at reading they become,” Carolyn Stephens said. “They are learning sounds and reading techniques. It helps the kids advance.”
Among public libraries, the Detroit library system boasts that it is the fourth-largest in the nation by volumes, just behind libraries in Boston, New York, and Cincinnati, and ahead of libraries in cities with even larger populations, including Los Angeles and Chicago and Philadelphia.
“Our mission is relatively simple: to enlighten and empower people to make their way in this world,” Detroit library spokesman A.J. Funchess said. “As more people move into the city — the resurgence of Detroit — there’s going to be a resurgence of Detroit’s library, too.”
The City Library of Detroit opened in 1817, 20 years before Michigan became a state.
It became the Detroit Public Library in 1865 and is now the second largest library system in the state (after the University of Michigan Library) with more than 7.2 million volumes and 21 branches, 19 of which are open.
The main library building off Woodward Avenue — designed by Cass Gilbert, the architect who also designed the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington and the Woolworth Building in New York — was constructed from Vermont marble with serpentine Italian marble trim.
The collection includes rare books, historical documents, and special music by black artists.
And, in addition to the library’s programs, other groups are using the institution to help deliver services.
“Libraries are the one place where people from an array of economic backgrounds can come and get their interests met,” said Tammie Jones, a United Way vice president. “Whether you are high-income and a voracious reader who prefers not to have your bookshelves exploding or whether you are low-income and need to find support developing your résumé, the library is a place everyone can turn to.”
Esmeralda Torres of southwest Detroit enrolled two of her three children — her 6-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter — in the program to boost their reading and English language skills. The children attend Academy of the Americas, a public school that offers a Spanish-English bilingual program.
“My little girl has been having trouble reading,” Torres, 36, said. “It’s like a supplement, on the side, that helps keep her English skills going while she is learning Spanish. This really, really is a blessing to have.”
Still, library directors say that to add services they must make the case to elected officials, donors, and taxpayers who allow them the funding they need.
They also have to make some hard choices.
“Our funding is always something we have to fight for,” said Devan Green, Pontiac library director. “We have to show we are serving the public and how we are serving them. You have people say, ‘You don’t need the library,’ but that’s not true.”
In one of the poorest cities in Oakland County, the Pontiac library is so vital that once a month, volunteers use it to offer meals to hungry residents.
“We’re a library, but everyone meets here for many different things,” said Green, who estimated the library has hosted more than 400 meetings for groups in the past year. “We’re really like the community center.”
In the next few years, Green said, the library also would like to find ways to reach residents who don’t have transportation to get to it with satellite locations throughout the city and possibly a van or small bus that would bring publications to the people.
Still, some libraries, like Southfield, are still recovering from cuts during the recession.
Southfield officials and residents spent months a couple decades ago debating what kind of library the city needed and ultimately decided to build a new one that was nearly three times the size of the one it replaced.
“It was meant to be a beacon to draw people to Southfield,” said City Librarian Dave Ewick, who called the design visionary. “I think it’s one of the best things we’ve got in the city, and it does bring people from neighboring communities.”
Ewick counters concerns that libraries are imperiled by reduced funding and the digital age by arguing that libraries supply residents reliable information.
“Google,” he said, “will give you 60 million answers. The librarian will help you find the one you want.”
But, Ewick said, the library also is still reeling from cuts in hours and employees that were made at the height of the recession. It also still faces many decisions about what new services to add — and how to pay for them.
Libraries also are aiming to be places where people who couldn’t afford to go to concert halls and museums can hear and see art. The Southfield library spent $500,000 to buy “The Boy and Bear” sculpture, which had been at the now-closed Northland Center mall, and other artwork.
On a recent afternoon, Molly Higgins, 37, of Ann Arbor, took her two sons — Jonah and Sam Higgins, 5 and 4, respectively — to the library in Southfield for the first time. They admired the Marshall Fredericks bear.
“Take a picture,” Sam, smiling, begged his mother said. “Take a picture!”
In growing communities, the libraries are growing — but, also transforming.
A new, larger North Branch of the Clinton-Macomb Public Library is in the works at 25 Mile Road and Broughton in the Town Center area of Macomb Township and scheduled to open in 2020.
“Books will always be the thing people think of when they think of libraries,” said Jamie Morris, the library’s head of community relations. “But it’s not just for housing books, it’s for people to come and be a part of the community.”
In Detroit, Bryant — who now has a house within just a few miles of the Parkman branch — said she and her 13-year-old daughter still frequent the library, just not every day like she had been.
“It’s kind of relaxing just to come to the library to get a book and to have an adventure by reading it, by expanding your mind and thinking,” Bryant said. “I was so happy to be at the library because it was so warm, like being with family.”