The Preface to Issue 12: Libraries and Schools
This issue of Torchlight: A Journal of Libraries and Bookish Love, explores the infrastructure- physical and emotional- that gives rise to school libraries, and what libraries can represent not just for educational spaces but also for a democracy. Between the conception and final publication of this issue, in a matter of months, the world around us has changed leaving our democracy transmogrified. The weeks leading up to this issue saw many acts of senseless violence including a library being attacked, tear-gassed and vandalised. However, these weeks have also seen libraries spontaneously spring up around us alongside roads, at bus stops and in bastis – we will read to resist.
For this issue, the definition of a “library” extends from the brick and mortar of the physical building, to the ...