For filmmaker Dawn Logsdon, summers in the 1960s and 1970s were filled with road trips in her family’s Volkswagen. A common stop on those travels included public libraries, which meant that by age 12, she had visited more than 100 libraries across the US.
About a decade ago, Logsdon started documenting life in libraries throughout the country. Since she began filming, public libraries have been on the front lines of a battlefield over intellectual freedom as they face threats of closures and an unprecedented surge of book challenges and bans.
In the upcoming PBS documentary Free for All: The Public Library, Logsdon and her codirector Lucie Faulknor trace the public library’s history, starting with the Free Library Movement of the late 19th century. The film, which Logsdon narrates, premieres April 29.
American Libraries spoke with the duo about libraries in today’s sociopolitical climate and the unsung heroes in library history.
What inspired you to take on this project?
Lucie Faulknor: After Hurricane Katrina, [me and Logsdon evacuated from New Orleans to] Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We thought we’d be gone for a weekend. [Then] we realized that the levees broke and we couldn’t go home. We had to rescue our cat by boat two weeks after the storm. But when we realized that we couldn’t go back, we went to the public library in East Baton Rouge and realized the librarians were first responders. They were there, ready to get everybody to sign up for library cards so they can get online and look for loved ones and lost pets, FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] forms, Red Cross [financial assistance]. It was amazing.
Dawn Logsdon: The other reason for me is just a growing awareness of how much of our public space was disappearing. We wanted to make a piece that showed their origins and how important they’ve been throughout history.
The documentary asserts that libraries are a great example of “democracy at play.” How do you think libraries reflect today’s political climate?
Logsdon: I would want to quote Crosby Kemper III, [former director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services], who—at the end of our film—says we need more places like libraries where people come together to agree to disagree, disagree to disagree, or find agreement. It’s one of the last places where we can actually hash these things out in a civil way, most of the time. I know there have been exceptions recently to that rule, but I’m inspired by how many people are coming out as a reaction to the backlash to speak up for their libraries, all across the political spectrum, and also the reception that the film is getting.
The COVID-19 pandemic affected the film’s completion, since libraries and public archives were closed. How did this delay affect the film’s narrative five years later, with libraries facing increased censorship attempts and greater financial challenges?
Logsdon: Quite a bit. It was a little bit more of a broader sweep of history before. And the contemporary focus was more on budget issues, which of course continued to be a major challenge for libraries, and even more so since the film came out.
Libraries have faced waves of book bannings and freedom of information challenges throughout time too. And so we decided to just launch right into it at the beginning of the film and start with that and emphasize the historical parallels all the way through.
There’s been a lot of focus on the negative sides of our history, which is really important to be told, but it’s really important not to forget that this is a beautiful story of the American ideals becoming reality, step by step, for over a hundred years.—Dawn Logdson, filmmaker
Free for All highlights many unheard voices, especially women’s in the library profession’s history. What was the most surprising or impactful story you uncovered?
Logsdon: I really love the story about Martin Luther King Jr. and his librarian, Annie L. McPheeters, [at his childhood local library, the Auburn branch of Atlanta’s Carnegie Library]. Apparently he first started reading books about Gandhi at that library too, thanks to her. She also started some of the earliest radio storytimes and services to the blind especially for people of color in the South.
My absolute favorite librarian from the past is [suffragist, abolitionist, and New York Public Library staffer] Ernestine Rose, just because she goes through so many chapters of library history, and she made so much change behind the scenes and has been given so little credit. So I hope that that changes.
The documentary also discusses the growing risk of closure for many public libraries. How can patrons support libraries facing these threats?
Faulknor: I think the usual recipe for being a good citizen is: Show up at the meetings, make your voice heard, write letters, make phone calls; get involved in your library board, your school board, our local elections. I feel like people have gotten a little apathetic about that and taken our votes—and our libraries—for granted. And I am hoping that the people who are apathetic are waking up and getting out there.
Logsdon: The history and the fights that some of these librarians took [on] could lead as an example—the main lesson being, “Don’t be scared, don’t be intimidated.”
What else do you hope viewers will take away from the documentary?
Faulknor: I hope people will thank their librarian first and foremost and also just realize that we can’t take them for granted anymore. You think, ‘There’s a library down the street and it’s always going to be there.’ But it’s not guaranteed.
Logsdon: The reason I focused on these unknown, unsung heroes is because I hope people will realize that’s how a lot of change happens. It is not just the Ben Franklins and the Melvil Deweys and the multibillionaires like Andrew Carnegie. Most of America’s libraries were made possible by small groups of people in their own local community just saying, “Hey, we want this, we need this.”
Yes, Andrew Carnegie paid for a lot of the buildings, but the people agreed to pay for them with their own tax money to keep them running and supply them with books, and they donated the land. It was really a community effort of people coming together, often across political boundaries and differences. There’s been a lot of focus on the negative sides of our history, which is really important to be told, but it’s really important not to forget that this is a beautiful story of the American ideals becoming reality, step by step, for over a hundred years. More and more people are included in the library story, and that’s remarkable.
