American Libraries

“Just How The Camel Got His Hump,

And How The Monkey Lost His Rump,

And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,

There's Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole—

Oh, books, what books they used to know,

Those children living long ago!

So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,

Go throw your TV set away (now the TiVo, too),

And in its place you can install a
lovely bookshelf on the wall.

Then fill the shelves with lots of books,

Ignoring all the dirty looks,

The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,

And children hitting you with sticks—

Fear not, because we promise you

That, in a about a week or two,

Of having nothing else to do (before the Internet days),

They'll now begin to feel the need

Of having something good to read.

And once they start—oh boy, oh boy!

You watch the slowly growing joy that fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen

They'll wonder what they'd ever seen

In that ridiculous machine,

That nauseating, foul, unclean

Repulsive television screen!

And later, each and every kid

Will love you more for what you did.

Thank you. (Applause) You know why I am so passionate about the purpose librarians bring to their work? It's because I've seen it with my own eyes, I've experienced it first-hand. My time—twenty-plus years of spare time—as a young person in the public library played such an important role in my own journey—not just as an intellectual, not just as a citizen, but even as a Muslim. Far from diluting or polluting my faith—which what my Madrasah teacher feared would happen—the freedom of information that libraries provided me saved my faith in Islam; and for that I will be eternally grateful.