Use It or Lose It

Here's another interesting fact: People always mention libraries in terms of just being sources for reading material or research. But I probably would not be in Chicago were it not for the Manhattan public library, because I was looking for an organizing job and was having great trouble finding a job as a community organizer in New York. The Mid-Manhattan library had these books of lists of organizations, and the librarian helped me find these lists of organizations, and I wrote to every organization. One of them wound up being an organization in Chicago that I got a job with.

-- Barack Obama, interviewed in American Libraries, Aug. 2005, p. 48-52

This quotation has become quite the touchstone. And why not? It's an impromptu, priceless promotion of our cause. So go ahead, City Room, keep writing articles like today's "Job Seekers at the Library, in Obama's Footsteps." Let's hope the City Council and the New York State Legislature are reading.



This image is becoming ubiquitous, but what's not to love?