The great French novelist Victor Hugo once wrote, “A library implies an act of faith which generations, still in darkness hid, sign in their night in witness of the dawn.”
Today such a torch will be enkindled when, after 30 years of planning and anticipation, our resplendent San Diego Central Library celebrates its grand opening. You can join fellow book and culture lovers for this community celebration of San Diego’s mecca for literacy and learning. Ribbon-cutting takes place at 11 a.m., followed by a literacy-themed street fair. As library director Deborah Barrow puts it, “We are a major city in the nation. And now we are going to have a major library that matches that city.”
Just about everyone has seen the blue street signs with the big white H and an arrow pointing the way to the nearest hospital. Now our roads are fringed by a similar kind of road marker with a prominently displayed L doodle figure reading a book and an arrow aimed in the direction of another local institution: the public library. Such a sign reminds us that librarians serve us in much the same way as doctors and nurses, and that books and other media are just as vital to our health as bandages and medicine.
Elinor Lander Horwitz once wrote in The Washington Post, “There are numerous men and women perambulating the earth — in appearance much like ordinary respectable citizens — who have warm, loving, passionate — even sensuous — feelings about libraries.” I’m pleased to share with you on this monumental day my favorite passionate quotations about libraries:
• Here genius lies enshrined.
Here sleep in silent majesty
The monarchs of the mind.
— inscription in the St. Louis Public Library
• Farther than arrows, higher than wings fly poet’s song and prophet’s words.
— inscription over the front entrance of the Brooklyn Public Library
• Libraries are user-friendly. — American Library Association
• What building has the most stories? The library. — children’s riddle
• I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library! — John Cheever
• A library goes on as far as thought can reach. — Roberston Davies
• Take one brisk walk to the library. Take out any book by a tried-and-true writer. Take a brisk walk home and read with all attention. The exercise plus the tonic of the book will provide all physical and mental requirements for good health. — Helen Hayes, at age 86
• I am a self-confessed library buff, drawn to them like others are drawn to theaters, art galleries, bars or football games. I am proud to say that I have more library cards than credit cards in my wallet and that I know where all the coffee machines are located at the Library of Congress. — Paul Dickson
• Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries. — library poster
• Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library. The only entrance requirement is interest. — Lady Bird Johnson
• The closest you will ever come in this life to an orderly universe is a good library. — Ashleigh Brilliant
• Call it impiety, but to me the very word library has a sanctity that church cannot gain. The sacredness is my own association, of course. It is thick walls and tall windows. It is quiet rustling pages that whisper of knowledge. It is cool and smelly with that exciting odor that can only be got from aging glue, printers’ ink, paper, leather and ideas together. — A.C. Greene
• Libraries remain the meccas of self-help, the most open of open universities, where there are no entrance examinations and no diplomas and where one can enter at any age. — Daniel J. Boorstin
From 12:30-1 p.m. Monday at the new Central Library, Alex Sandie, president of the San Diego Shakespeare Society, and I, along with other bardophiles, will perform “Bard Under the Dome.” I’d love to meet you there.
Please send your questions and comments about language to richard.lederer@utsandiego.com