the library as sanctuary for inner-city youth: protections, implications, cohesions, tensions

311 Pages·2004·1.06 MB·English

by  Sylvia Leigh Lambert

Sylvia Leigh Lambert. The Library as Sanctuary for Inner-City Youth:
Protections, Implications, Cohesions, Tensions, Recommendations, and
Inspirations. A Master’s Paper for the M.S. in L.S degree. July, 2004. 311 pages.
Advisor: Brian Sturm

This study explores the library-as-sanctuary, a motif adopted by many in the
library community, but not explored elaborately prior to this work. It applies this
motif, its history, and recastings to youth services of inner-city public libraries.
After studying the context of contemporary low-income urban youths’ lives, a
detailed discussion follows with attention to the implications of the sanctuary
motif to inner-city youth services. Tensions and cohesions are highlighted.
Inspired by the motif, recommendations are made for spatial design, collection
development, programming, personnel, advocacy, and public policy.
Headings:
Library as sanctuary
Young adult library services – Aims and objectives
Urban libraries
Library service – Poverty
Public libraries – Aims and objectives
THE LIBRARY AS SANCTUARY FOR INNER-CITY YOUTH:
PROTECTIONS, IMPLICATIONS, COHESIONS,
TENSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS, AND INSPIRATIONS.
by
Sylvia Leigh Lambert
A Master’s paper submitted to the faculty
of the School of Information and Library Science
of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Master of Science in
Library Science.
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
July 2004
Approved by
_____________________________________
Brian Sturm
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Table of Contents

Introduction 2

Chapter 1—History, Reconceptions, and Recastings of Sanctuary and the
Sanctuary Motif 4

Chapter 2—Young, Endangered City Lives, City ‘Souls’ 110

Chapter 3—The Public Library as Sanctuary for Inner-City Youth 143
Space 158
Collection 200
Programming 215
Personnel and Advocacy 253

Conclusion 272

Notes 277

Works Cited 278
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The Library as Sanctuary for Inner-City Youth:
Protections, Implications, Cohesions,
Tensions, Recommendations, and Inspirations

“Libraries offer sanctuary. Like synagogues, churches, mosques, and other
sacred spaces, libraries can create a physical reaction, a feeling of peace,
respect, humility, and honor that throws the mind wide open and suffuses the
body with a near-spiritual pleasure.”
-American Library Association*

“Libraries could help to create these urban sanctuaries for young people,
within their walls and elsewhere in the community.”
-Virginia A. Walter*

Introduction

A recurrent topic in library-related literature is the library-as-sanctuary.
Many authors have addressed this subject; they have employed this analogy,
using words and phrases such as sanctuary, safe haven, and refuge in order to
describe their near-reverence for the institution that is the library. However,
many of these writers often simply refer to these words in a cursory manner.
They just mention them ‘in passing’ without revealing information about their
origins, evolving definitions, and contemporary recasting. While often providing
well-intentioned anecdotes, these writers seldom probe deeply into these terms.
They seldom offer readers insights into how the history(ies) of these concepts
can offer inspiration to our institution. In contrast, this paper attempts to examine
in detail the history of the word sanctuary, and in turn, apply this exploration to
the spaces, services, missions, and goals of public libraries. It asks, “What are
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the implications—cohesions, tensions, recommendations, and inspirations—of
the protective ‘library-as-sanctuary’ analogy—and in particular, how can
thisconception apply to youth services in inner-city public libraries?” It asks,
“How can we build, care for, and maintain a library-as-sanctuary-for-inner-city-
youth?”
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History, Reconceptions, and Recastings of Sanctuary and the Sanctuary Motif

The etymology of the word sanctuary connects it to the Late Latin
sanctuarium, an apparently irregular form of sanctus, meaning “sacred, holy”
(Alles 59). The word is also related by analogy to sacrarium, meaning, “shrine”
(Alles 59). As a sacred place, it is distinctly set apart from the profane, from the
world of ordinary existence.
The most primitive sanctuaries were natural settings like groves of trees
and hilltops—locations believed especially touched by the presence of divinities
(“Sanctuary,” Encyclopaedia Britannica). For example, ancient Germanic
peoples perceived some lakes, fountains, and forests as sacred (“Sanctuary,”
LoveToKnow). Similarly, early Anglo-Saxons focused upon the spirituality of
woods and hills, using them as sanctuaries for pre-Christian worship
(“Sanctuary,” LoveToKnow; Alan). Caves also served as ancient sanctuaries,
with their mouths providing a natural demarcation between the sacred and the
profane (Alles 59). Some early groups of people arranged rings of stones in
order to indicate this essential distinction.
These primitive arrangements were followed by man-made structures like
the Assyrians’ and Babylonians’ ziggurats, terraced pyramids representing the
sacred mountain (Alles 59; “Ziggurat”). Another ancient sanctuary-like structure
is the sacred lodge, associated with the Native American Algonquin and Sioux
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(“Sanctuary,” Encyclopaedia Britannica). Perhaps the most well known of
the early man-made sanctuaries is the Hebrew Tabernacle—a simple portable
tent, constructed by Moses for worship by the Israelites during their wandering—
during the Exodus from slavery in Egypt to the freedom of the Promised Land.
This structure was composed of linen hangings, tapestries, and curtains
decorated with cherubim (“Tabernacle,” par. 3). The details of the Tabernacle
complex were considered to be dictated by Yahweh, whose dwelling place was
believed to be the tent’s inner room, the “Holy of Holies,” where this God of Israel
sat invisible upon a throne-like slab of gold atop the Ark of the Covenant—the
wooden box, where the tablets of the Ten Commandments were kept
(“Tabernacle,” pars. 3-4). The Old Testament’s account of the Exodus event not
only establishes the idea of the Hebrew Tabernacle as a sanctuary that is a
physical place (Lambert’s emphasis) of worship, it also presents one of the first
theological accounts of the protection (Lambert’s emphasis) of sanctuary—
through reference to Yahweh’s commanding Moses to create several cities of
refuge for the Israelites “as well as the stranger and sojourner among you”
(Numbers 35:15, qtd. in McConnell 6). Scripture states, “And the Lord said to
Moses, ‘Say to the people of Israel, when you cross the Jordan into the land of
Canaan, then you shall select cities to be cities of refuge for you, that the
manslayer who kills any person without intent may flee there’” (Numbers 35:9-11,
qtd. in Bau 124). These cities—Kedesh, Sheehem, Kirjatharba, Bezer, Ramoth,
and Golan—were places to which those “who killed unintentionally or without
malice” could flee, in order to escape the “blood-vengeance” of the deceased’s
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relatives (Ptacek 14; Gonzalez 12). These cities of refuge provided the fugitive
with a trial by the city elders, in order to affirm the killing as accidental (Bau 125).
If innocence was confirmed, the fugitive was allowed—or rather, required—to
remain in the city and “lead a normal life and earn his livelihood” until the high
priest’s death, which served as a substitute death to satisfy the “requirement of
expiation of killing by blood” (Bau 127, 126). Hence, the high priest became a
central figure of the sanctuary privilege (Bau 126).
Central figures of this privilege in ancient Egypt were the gods Amon and
Osiris, the latter being the god of the underworld, considered a grand symbol of
nature’s creative forces (“Osiris” The Columbia Encyclopedia). Both of these
Egyptian gods’ temples offered the right of sanctuary (“Sanctuary” The Columbia
Encyclopedia). In addition, ancient Egyptians used temples’ sacred chambers
for a “form of dream healing called incubation” (Swan 16). Incubation involved
careful preparation, followed by one’s sleeping in a sanctuary, wherein he or she
received an instructive or healing dream. Reportedly, a woman, who wanted a
child but was apparently unable to conceive, slept in the sanctuary of the god
Imhotep’s temple, where the god appeared to her in a dream and gave her
instructions for preparing a tea for her husband to drink. She followed the
instructions, made the recipe, and was pregnant with her husband’s offspring that
night (Swan 16). Pharaohs were also known to receive instructive dreams
through incubation in temple sanctuaries (Swan 17).
Refuge was also found in Greek sanctuaries, erected to honor the
protective gods and goddesses of particular communities. These sanctuary
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structures “were intended to house offerings made to the gods” (Tomlinson 18).
Sanctuaries of extremely powerful deities and cities were also the sites of
magnificent festivals, attracting tens of thousands of worshippers. Hordes
participated in games, dramatic and choral performances, and feasting in the
outer, ancillary areas of a sanctuary, not disturbing the strict sanctity of its
sacrificial altars and inner temple—“the building in which the god was supposed
to live, and which in fact housed a statue or less lifelike image representing him”
(Tomlinson 16). Significant protection was afforded by the celia in which stood
statues of gods and goddesses in the Greek sanctuaries’ inner temples
(“Sanctuary,” LoveToKnow). Popular for its protection was the temple of Apollo
at Delphi, known “throughout the Mediterranean world as a haven for fugitives”
(“Sanctuary” The Columbia Encyclopedia). In addition to the temple of Apollo at
Delphi, that of Athena on the Acropolis was a famous sanctuary, particularly for
Cylon’s followers, whose flight there for asylum as political fugitives is noted by
both Plutarch and Thucydides (Ryan 213). Delphi’s sanctuary was particularly
renowned for the protective power of its omphalos—the “navel,” a round, sacred
stone in the temple of Apollo at Delphi that supposedly represented the center of
the earth (“Omphalos”). Stories suggest that by remaining in contact with the
omphalos, Orestes, who avenged of the death of his father Agamemnon by
killing his mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, was safe from the
Furies, the “blood-sucking underworld goddesses who hunt down and destroy
those who shed kindred blood, especially matricides” (Alles 59; “Orestes”;
McManus, par. 7). In addition, the site of Delphi was “originally sacred to Mother
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Earth (Ge or Gaia), who gave dream oracles to people who came there and slept
on the ground” (Swan 18). Most ancients considered the experience of great
dreams within a place as a sign of its sacredness—of a spirit inhabiting it (Swan
17). The spirit of Asclepius, the god of medicine and healing, along with other
spirits of healing, was associated with “therapeutic sanctuaries” (Swan 19).
Greeks, suffering from illness, visited these therapeutic sanctuaries, prayed to
the likes of Asclepius, and sought healing in treatments such as dream
incubation (Swan 19). Contemporary researchers in environmental medicine
believe these healing sites had climates that were conducive particularly to the
treatment of respiratory ailments (Swan 19). Similarly, the founder of Greek
medicine, Hippocrates, advised city planners to consider the healing properties of
natural localities when founding establishments (Swan 19). Meanwhile,
philosophers like Theophrastus, maintained that certain areas were more
favorable than others for human “flourishing” (Swan 19). The great Plato even
remarked on the special spirits of certain places in his dialogue, the Laws: “some
localities have a more marked tendency than others to produce better or worse
men” (qtd. in Swan 20).
The Greeks also protected special natural localities by walling them off
into sacred precincts, called “heiros temenos” (Swan 18). These areas often
contained groves of trees and springs or covered mountaintops and were
considered the homes of dryads—wood spirits and naiads—the nymphs of
brooks, streams, waterfalls, and fountains (Swan 19). Added protection was
afforded to these places by laws that made it “illegal to disturb the place and the