Checking in on a National Park bookshop

Nestled under the Golden Gate Bridge next to the Fort Point historic site, the National Park Service runs a book and trinket shop to lure the many visitors who flock to the area. It's called The Warming Hut, a proper name for a place often wrapped in dense fog -- though not so often in winter as bright sun shone yesterday.

Since the MAGA wrecking crew took over, I've been watching to see whether their attempt to erase the true, messy, magnificent history of this state and country had yet prevailed in the book display. 

Last July, The Warming Hut displayed several shelves of both adult and children's books which explored the history and present conditions of which the regime is trying to keep us ignorant: lots of serious treatments of dispossession of California's natives, of Black soldiers, of looming climate change. 

By late September 2025, the adult books that offend MAGA had been pushed to a shelf in the corner, but they were still there. However, the children's section was still magnificent -- wildly diverse and clearly curated by some thoughtful employee who cared.

Yesterday, though depleted, the NPS is still selling books which MAGA would abhor. (Do they read? I shouldn't be snotty, I suppose.)

Here's the adult shelf, small but still there:

Meanwhile, the children's section is still imaginative, if not large as it once was:

Click to enlarge.

I'll check in again next summer and see how nuance, truth and complexity are holding up in this national park ...

It's Election Day in Tisbury

One thing I've noticed about Martha's Vineyard island, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts generally, is that they go in for a lot of voting. Popular, participatory democracy is alive and well around here. I don't know if they'll have a big turnout, but the residents of the town of Tisbury are having their say today.

At Tisbury special town meeting on Dec. 17, voters approved a $4.4-million borrowing request to renovate and maintain the Vineyard Haven library. The next critical step in the process requires voters to approve the spending request at a special town election on Jan. 7. 

... Previously, the library board of trustees created a nonprofit organization, which raised $1.6 million for an addition to the library, but during construction, the older portions of the building continued to deteriorate. According to trustees, there are major issues with roofing, plumbing, heating, air conditioning, and overall integrity of the building, and those issues have continued to grow.

“We raised $1.6 million to build an addition that is paid for, but in the process, the building continues to deteriorate. We need to replace the roofs so we can put solar on it, replace the bathrooms, fix ceiling water leaks, and the exterior is rotting,” said Arch Smith, chair of the board of trustees. “In short, we have water coming in from the roof, and water coming in from the ground, and we don’t want it in the building.” 

If approved at the Jan. 7 special town election, bids for the construction project will be sent out to all possible contractors by late February, Smith said. -- MV Times

This island has wonderful libraries, though apparently the one in Vineyard Haven needs a lot of work.

I'll update here when we learn whether the voters are willing to go for these improvements and these costs to themselves.

January 8 update: The voters have spoken. "Tisbury voters on Tuesday approved a $4.8 million funding request that will be used for the addition and repair of Vineyard Haven Public Library. The ballot question passed by a vote of 305 to 130."

Yet another element of community we can cherish

In which Erudite Partner applauds what may be our best civic institution, Our Public Library.

I’d like to argue that there is, however, one institution that’s almost entirely benign: the public library. As I wish one could say about our medical system, it does no harm (though many right-wingers disagree with me, as we shall see).

What could be more wonderful than a place that allows people to read books, magazines, and newspapers for free? That encourages children to read? That these days offers free access to that essential source of information, entertainment, and human connection, the Internet? It’s even a place where people who have nowhere to live — or who are regularly kicked out of their homeless shelters during daylight hours — can stay dry and warm. And where they, too, can read whatever they choose and, without spending a cent — no small thing — use a bathroom with dignity.

Not surprisingly our right wingers would destroy libraries as well as the rest of civilization if they could. Somebody somewhere might be becoming smarter, wiser, and more broad-minded; gottta clamp down. 

Sticking up for the freedom to read freely is a vital form of sticking up for human possibility ...

Librarians and lost innocence

Sometimes it is the little stories of small eruptions of cultural grievance that remind those of us who live comfortably in Democratic cities that MAGA madness is afoot.

I was gripped by this story of right wing culture warriors closing down a small, necessary and loved, rural public library for fear of The Gay.

A Battle Over Drag Queen Story Hour Shut Down This Town’s Library

Last April, the library announced a one-time addition to its children’s lineup: Drag Queen Story Hour.

“We knew it would probably be controversial,” recalled Amanda Hoffman, who was the library’s director of youth services. “We didn’t expect it to be what it became.”

Over the coming months, someone called in a bomb threat to the library, a board meeting ended in punches being thrown and the library itself became so tense that Ms. Hoffman was hospitalized with stress-induced vertigo. Neighbors denounced one another as “fascists” or “predators” and complained of being doxxed, threatened and harassed.

The library never held a Drag Queen Story Hour.

Finally, this fall, most of the library’s staff and trustees quit, forcing it to shut down. After 53 years of operation, the library — named for the adjacent Rockwell Falls — has not lent a book since Sept. 26.

This sort of thing is going on wherever there is a critical mass of organized outraged objectors to contemporary culture. Since there are people involved, people get hurt -- as do libraries.

Reading the story, put me in mind of my mother who died over two decades ago. She was a children's librarian and a faithful Republican. She was committed to finding the right book for each child that would move them to read. She told the branch public library early in my childhood that I should be allowed to browse and take out any book from the adult section that interested me without restriction. And I did. Though not fully credentialed in the modern sense, she was a supporter of the American Library Association and attended at least one national conference.

The issue of Drag Queen Story Hour would not have arisen (I think) in the private schools where Mother worked. But I find it interesting to mull over how she might have thought about it.

Mostly I think she would have found the idea of drag utterly strange. There were men who wanted to prance around in women's clothes and read with kids? Weird!

She upheld the gender rules about self-presentation, almost always wearing skirts when most women of her class had defaulted to slacks. She just felt better, even while gardening. You can tell I thought this was weird.

But she also came out of a more innocent time when single sex, homo-social, play acting was an understood form of having fun. Before television, given the chance, people (women, anyway) enjoyed playing dress up for their mutual amusement. 

A women's club show from 1937. Mother is the cop.

I think she might have defaulted on Drag Queen Story Hour to, cautiously, understanding the event as men and children playing. It would never have occurred to her that this was sexualizing. She would have found that notion prurient. 

She might not have liked Drag Queen Story Hour much, but if it engaged the children with books, that would be enough.

Maybe the library will reopen some day

It feels as if the monumental Mission branch of the San Francisco Public Library has been closed ... forever. Even before the pandemic, plans for closing and renovation were discussed in public meetings. Then came the civic shut down in 2020 and the massive Carnegie building never reopened. SFPL provided a "temporary" branch on Valencia -- but what's with the library?

Yesterday the powers-that-be, headlined by local city supervisor Hillary Ronen, announced that construction would begin on the massive empty hulk. She's a library user too.

 

Mission artist Juana Alicia spoke for our neighborhood's endurance. Her mural, which has been commissioned for the restored main stairwell, will feature images of the nopal, the Mexican cactcus. This prickly fruit serves as an "emblem of resilience and national identity."

The library project was then blessed by the neighborhood Aztec dancers.

At each stage of the renovation project, we've been assured that construction will take 2 years. Will the remodeling be completed by mid-decade? This is San Francisco. I expect delays ...

Public libraries might be civilization's best idea

Here's a fine way to celebrate LGBTQ+ existence. A librarian shares:

I think often about the teenager who, years ago, asked me if we had any LGBTQ+ self help books at the library. We did.

I walked with them to show them where. Once in the stacks, I told them there was no limit to the number of books you could check out.

They said they didn’t have a card and they didn’t want to sign up for one cause they didn’t want their mom to find out what they were reading. I’d like to think the reason for that is simply because this teenager just wasn’t ready to have that convo with a parent…

I told them they didn’t need to check out books, that they could find a comfy spot to sit and read as much and as long as they’d like.

As I walked away, I turned and said, “for what it’s worth, we don’t have security sensors here.”

I think *so* often about that teenager and about all the folks who have felt safe enough to be vulnerable at the library. I hope the books helped them.

My mother would have liked this. Except perhaps the veiled encouragement to the kid to abscond with a book. She was a children's librarian who believed fiercely that young people should be encouraged to read anything that would hold their interest and good would come of it. When I was nine, she marched me into the local branch public library, got me a card, and told the staff I could take out anything I wanted. Many of my choices were gruesome accounts of wars past.

There simply weren't any books that would help me come to terms with being a lesbian. Now there are.

Library updates itself

After 15 long months closed, it looks as if there's action at the Mission Branch of the San Francisco Public Library. That doesn't mean our local outpost is opening up -- it means that the optimistic remodeling plan projected two years ago is getting underway. 

Architects have a tough job. The building is an elegant turn of the 20th century edifice, one of 2,509 built between 1883 and 1929 with funds donated by the philanthropic steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. I think it is fair to say that he hoped by offering access to books in neo-classical environments he would reinforce the industry of the immigrant masses who were his workforce. Whatever his motivation, all over the country libraries still use his buildings -- and struggle to adapt these physical structures to modern requirements.

This imposing, closed off, former main entrance conveys a sense of where architects have to start.

Before the pandemic, neighborhood surveys and a city planning process had determined that what the space needs is better facilities for children's story hours and better wired study space for low income students. But how the interior might reflect the neighborhood was still up in the air.

Then the other day this appeared on the unused doors: 

The posters show three designs by local muralists proposed for one sealed-off window that looms over the main reading room. The Library Commission is offering all interested people an opportunity to comment on the proposed designs, deadline August 5. Go ahead, take a look.

Mission Local has much more, including artist biographies. 

Which do I prefer? Not sure at all. Any would be a great addition to this strange, serviceable, much-loved architectural oddity. I think I lean toward this antic offering from Javier G. Rocabado.

Los Hijos del Maiz is dedicated to René Yañez, the late curator of SOMArts.  Using the Día de los Muertos concept, this piece illustrates the traditions, achievements, and contributions of Latinx people to the Mission District and society at large.  The Día de los Muertos concept speaks of our ancestors, while the Graduate speaks of the Future, bridging millennia of history.

But your mileage may vary. This a participatory project.