Portraits of homeless people using libraries

[Lady Freedom Returns]

Portraits of homeless people using libraries
By Cory Doctorow at 12:00 pm Tue, May 26, 2015
http://boingboing.net/

Libraries, "the last bastion of democracy," are a haven for America's 500,000 homeless people, where literature, Internet access, and nonfiction can come together to provide respite from the relentless brutality of life on the streets.

In a series of moving portraits of homeless people using San Francisco, Sacramento and San Jose's public libraries, Fritz Hoffmann tells a visual story of forgotten people in quiet reflection and study, and makes us remember something we'd prefer to forget. The librarians in the story see their role as defending democratic access to information and ideas and public space -- in San Francisco, the library system now has a full-time social worker

Read more at http://boingboing.net/2015/05/26/portraits-of-homeless-people-u.html
http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/24/public-library-portraits-californias-homeless-connect-in-a-quiet-place/

[ghostsinthemachine]

1. That's me, I'm at the library right now

using the computer. I figure that if i am homeless I might as well make myself as informed as possible. Of course there are at least five other people here I know to be homeless and three more I suspect to be.

[awoke_in_2003]

2. "the last bastion of democracy,"

And far too many communities are trying to cut their budgets, making libraries one of the first victims. We must fight this trend at the local level. My community has a great library, but I still go to council meeting from time to time to make sure they aren't thinking about cutting things like this.

[Octafish]

3. Ray Bradbury credited the LAPL for his education.

An Appreciation: Ray Bradbury: A voice shaped by L.A.

The writer who re-imagined science fiction came into his own in Los Angeles. And although Ray Bradbury rarely wrote about it, whispers of the city can be heard in his works.

June 07, 2012|By David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times Book Critic

EXCERPT...

But you can argue that one of the most important influences on him started when he entered into a lifelong relationship with the Los Angeles Public Library — and libraries in general, which he regarded, in a very real sense, as society's soul.

"Libraries raised me," he said in a 2009 interview while trying to raise money for a library in Ventura County. "I don't believe in colleges and universities.… When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn't go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years."

Bradbury wasn't kidding; libraries were his education … and his muse. He wrote his breakthrough novel, 1953's "Fahrenheit 451," on a rental typewriter in the basement of UCLA's Powell Library, pumping in a dime for every half hour of typing. (The book cost him nine bucks and change to write.)

SOURCE: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/07/entertainment/la-et-ray-bradbury-critic-20120607

[CTyankee]

4. My public library is kind of my sanctuary of peace and quiet...

I feel calm with the books and my ability to get other books from other libraries. I get a feeling of calm. I often look at books that show me art from other ages that I have never seen before and I am in awe.

[juajen]

5. library homes

All over the world libraries are the bastion of freedom. I was so poor, I had no books at home. My local librarian, removed impediments to the amount of books and type I could check out at the age of 8 or 9. Books were not only my tutors, they were my salvation and my medicine for a totally disfunctional home, caused by an alcoholic father. Thank God for my sweet Mother who raised seven children in the hardest way possible; and, thank God for my libraries, where I lived,visited and worked all my life.

We must always be vigilent in supporting libraries all over the world. Knowledge is power.

[Thespian2]

6. Thanks!!

I am really happy that these people have a library...I have always loved them...as a teenager, just before the Ice Age, I couldn't read enough books...Guess that's why I have university degrees in English literature...

I wish the homeless had something more important than a library...a home

In America, there is no logical reason for homeless people...except GREED...