#and was like ‘😔this is way too niche; I hope someone’s posted it online; there’s no way my library has it’

[spending-life-pretending]

Everyone on here always talks about the tangible ways public libraries provide resources to their communities (as we should), but nobody talks about the invisible community reinforcement they provide too. No one talks about the warmth that comes from going to recommend your deep-south library purchase a newly-released, niche queer fantasy and seeing they’ve already added it. No one talks about the validation that comes from the knowledge of what other people in your community are reading. No one I know irl has read Robin Hobb, but when I was reading The Liveship Traders I would check them out from my library and I noticed books from The Farseer Trilogy and Fitz and the Fool were checked out at the same time, and I knew someone else, somewhere my hometown, was just as in love with this story as I was. When you see your favorite books are circulating, it reinforces that you aren’t alone; you aren’t weird; there is a community here even if it isn’t very vocal. I think that’s such an important type of community libraries provide, even if you have to read between the lines (pardon the pun) to see it.