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Mission Celebrate books, writers and readers who engender and sustain the life of the imagination. Highlight authors, illustrators, printers and the literary heritage of the State of Connecticut. 1997 Inaugural Message from Chief Librarian Louise
Blalock Hartford Public Library has just launched an exciting affiliation with the Library of Congress to celebrate books and to act as a catalyst and a source of ideas for the community of the book - artists, writers, readers, librarians, publishers and printers. Named the Connecticut Center for the Book by the Library of Congress, Hartford Public Library joins more than 3o state Centers throughout America in a recognition and praise of the beautiful book and the power of reading. Since its founding in 1977, the Center for the Book has been one of the Library of Congress's most dynamic outreach projects. State Centers for the Book use the prestige and resources of the Library of Congress to stimulate public interest in books, reading and libraries, to encourage the study of books and the print culture, and to champion the cause of literacy everywhere in the nation. Books, libraries and bookstores, book discussions and author programs are manifestations of a new appreciation of the arts in our lives. We are responding with the high touch - the humanizing touch - - as we recover from a century of technical dominance; the high tech that has pressed us hard, particularly in the last decade. Books put into our hands the imaginative, literary and humanistic renderings of the world. The narrative - history, biography, fiction - is where we learn about and understand ourselves and others. The book is enormously powerful. From Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop we can know the Southwest, from Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory we can know language, from Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower we can know love, and from Philip Roth's American Pastoral we can know our society. There is something about a book that gives us a special satisfaction, an aesthetic satisfaction of experiencing some aspect of the world and life, whole and understandable. In celebrating books, we celebrate creativity - so vital to our lives and to sustaining a vibrant society. In a recent interview, "Mr. High-Tech" himself, Microsoft's fabled founder Bill Gates, made a marvelous statement on behalf of books. "The most important room in my house is the library." Reading to children is essential, he said, and added that the greatest gift parents can give their children is the gift of reading. Everyone agrees that parents and caretakers are the most important influence in developing a child's love for books and reading. But, as librarians and educators know, parents need support and encouragement and basic education to understand and carry out their role as their child's first teacher. This is why the Connecticut Center for the Book will be active in developing family literacy pro grams that work and can be replicated in urban areas throughout the state. Children who are read to latch onto books with a passion that lasts a lifetime. Children who are read to learn to read and read to learn. Living in a society which strives to have all its citizens able to read is a relatively modern concept. In the 18oos, it was illegal to teach African American children to read in this country. In 1833, Prudence Crandall was tried right here in Hartford for the "crime" of teaching "young Misses of color" to read. Today, in Connecticut, just 55 per cent of all children have attained reading mastery by sixth grade. In Hartford, only 15 per cent have attained mastery. These children who are not reading, or reading well, are at risk. While Hartford Public Library is committed to providing free access to the Internet and all other forms of electronic information, instilling an appreciation of books and nurturing a love for reading is at the core of our mission. The reason for this is simple: being able to read is the single most important predictor of success in our society. That is why we take pride in continually developing the Library's extensive book collection and in being advocates for readers. In promoting a love for books, libraries fulfill one of their basic mandates: to pro mote literacy. Recently, Hartford Public Library joined hands with Hartford schools to be sure to work together effectively to promote literacy. Now, as one of the 34 state Centers for the Book, we will be even more effective as we join the Library of Congress's national efforts to promote literacy. Projects during our first year as Connecticut's Center for the Book will include producing a guide to Connecticut letterpress printers, small presses, book designers, illustrators and hand bookbinders - the work of people dedicated to the creation and preservation of books. We will also develop a guide to the state's great collections, including Arts of the Book Collection at Yale University, the Pequot Library in Southport, the Dodd Research Center in Storrs, the Auerbach Art Library at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, and the Deborah Library at Congregation Beth Israel in West Hartford, among others. We will develop traveling exhibits and lecture series to supplement and give meaning to the print culture guide. These projects will be available to other libraries, especially those in towns where publishers and printers are located. In our second year, we plan to bring attention to writers and Connecticut's literary heritage. A literary and historic map of the Connecticut River is being planned in cooperation with the Vermont Center for the Book, the New Hampshire State Library, and various academic and cultural institutions in Massachusetts, including the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. We hope to have the map ready in conjunction with the naming of the Connecticut River as one of the 10 nationally recognized American Heritage Rivers and the reissue of the fabulous Rivers Of America series by the Library of Congress. The Center's third year will focus on readers, talking about books, and the impact libraries have had on successful Connecticut people, including heroes in the arts, business and government, and sports. This is an especially important message for all Connecticut's children and teens to receive. We intend to collaborate with the schools, arts organizations and the corporate community to capture the attention and imagination of youth. The Connecticut Center for the Book is an opportunity to excite people about reading, writing and books and to reaffirm the central role of libraries in America's intellectual, social, cultural and political life. Most importantly, by being a Center for the Book, we will be able to attract more people to libraries and to literature, which is just as important as attracting them to museums, symphonies, ballets or the theater. As Archibald MacLeish expressed in an essay entitled "The Premise at the Center," books in a collection have a relationship one to another. "The Premise at the center of the Library," and the books collected together there, is "the ever present possibility of meaning." This, too, is the premise and the promise of the newly inaugurated Connecticut Center for the Book at Hartford Public Library. Louise Blalock is Chief Librarian, Hartford Public Library.
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