My Day at a Library Branch

This past Friday, I was lucky enough to to leave my cubicle for the day to work at the Haverford branch of the Free Library system. The library, located at the intersection of Haverford Avenue, 56th and Westminster Streets, is slightly west of my apartment and provides services for the Haddington and Carroll Park neighborhoods, both of which are working-class, predominantly African-American communities. Arriving at the library at 8:45, I was eagerly greeted by the library staff and shown around the bright and airy library, which features a children's computer station designed to look like an aquarium. People began to queue up at the library's doors almost a half an hour before the scheduled 10:00 AM opening. When the security guard finally unlocked the door at ten, a good fifteen people streamed in. Some immediately headed for the computer cluster while others made a beeline for the children's department.

The flow of people seemed to never cease. I was stationed at the help desk near the computer cluster, which was always full of people availing themselves of the library's tech resources. Over the course of the day, I helped ten different people compose, upload, and submit their resumés and/or apply for jobs. Some of them had only used a computer on a handful of occasions and some of them had been coming to the library to apply for jobs for weeks. Helping them through the application process was an eye-opening experience. Seeing their relieved faces when a website would register that it had received their application made me even more aware of the severity of our current economic climate. These men and women were doggedly pursuing any employment opportunity that they could find. I was awed by their persistence and made keenly conscious of the advantages that I enjoy as an employed college graduate.