On The Same Page

From the Margins

Being able to criss-cross the globe on the strength of the Internet has made it possible to engage with creative ideas, conversations, and experiences which otherwise would be beyond our reach—and at times, even beyond our imagination.  On The Same Page will bring to the reader of Torchlight, a combination of textual-audio-visual curated content, about and around libraries and bookish love.

In a world beset with inequities, it’s not surprising that marginalised people are in the majority. Over the centuries, libraries have made available to marginalised populations what has been consistently denied to them: access, voice, and visibility. Together they lay the foundation for their empowerment. Here are some glimpses from across the world of what place libraries have in the lives of the marginalised and how libraries have evolved in response to their needs.

Access

A century ago the largest number of public libraries anywhere—more than 3500—were in the United States. They present simultaneously opportunities for recreation, education, and development; they offer individuals privacy as well as foster a sense of community—unconditionally. Yet, a large section of the American population was barred from using public libraries. The infamous 1896 US Supreme Court ruling based on the legal doctrine “separate but equal” justified segregated public spaces for African Americans. It took more than half a century of sit-ins and protests to challenge the segregation of public libraries and for the discriminatory practice to be declared unlawful by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Even then, desegregation of libraries took some more years to move from paper to practice. Library cards were not issued to African Americans, there were no books for them to read and no furniture they could use. These were the compelling conditions under which civil rights workers in the deep southern States started Freedom Libraries but not without those who started them and those who used them, courting grave risk.

The liberating power of libraries is felt most keenly by those who are discriminated against and have been denied access to learning. At the time when racial discrimination was entrenched in American society, caste-based discrimination defined Indian society (and continues to do so). B.R. Ambedkar, an “untouchable” by birth, was a product of life-long caste discrimination but also early 20^th century higher education—much of it received abroad.  It is difficult to say where or when exactly Ambedkar’s tryst with libraries began but after returning to India he launched organisations to build libraries for the most marginalised castes. At the time of Ambedkar’s death, his collection of more than 50 thousand books made it one of the largest personal libraries in the world. Busts of Ambedkar grace University libraries in and outside of India (USA and Canada); a fitting tribute to an icon of marginalised people and his love for books.

Location—and dislocation—have pushed certain populations to the margins. Rural communities in developing countries have been characterised by poverty but their remote locations have marginalised them further. Particularly in relation to their urban counterparts when it comes to accessing information that could transform their lives. By offering ICT-based library services, public libraries have made it possible to bridge the digital divide for farming communities; from Chile to Uganda, from Serbia to Colombia, from the Philippines to Nepal, farmers and their families now have access to resources for print and digital literacy and for sustainable rural development.

Having reached the level of a crisis and affecting multiple countries simultaneously, refugees are the largest group that has come to be recognised world over as marginalised. Going by the latest United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) figures, there are close to 26 million refugees (externally displaced people), over half of whom are below the age of 18. When refugees reach alien shores ravaged, bereft, it is libraries that serve as lifelines—from accessing education to finding employment, from offering enrichment opportunities to helping create an identity in a new country. The International Federation of Library Associations describes the role of public libraries as “sanctuaries (safe spaces), storehouses (places to record their experiences), gateways (to new lives in host countries), and bridges (to new neighbours)” for refugees.

Voice

With libraries enabled by ICT adopting archival functions and archives subsuming the library form, the boundaries between libraries and archives have blurred as they pursue a common goal: to capture marginalised voices and experiences from the past, situate them within the present, and preserve both for posterity. One such archive/library is the  1947 Partition Archive which allows “anyone anywhere in the world to collect, archive and display oral histories that document not only Partition, but pre-Partition life and culture as well as post-Partition migrations and life changes.”

What is lesser known is that pre-ICT, marginalised communities in the US from as early as the 1800s, used print in artistic ways to record and disseminate their stories which spoke of their political and social needs and which otherwise would most likely have remained untold. Coined as zines, they are inexpensive, self-made/self-published booklets/pamphlets with a small circulation. Two centuries after the zine culture came into existence, the first zine library was established in 2003 in Manhattan’s Barnard College with over 10,000 zines. Just over a year ago, a fledgling in comparison, Mumbai’s first zine library opened with over 1500 titles.

Visibility

If there is anything more empowering for marginalised persons than being given access to information and opportunities for their experiences to be recorded, it is the chance to meet with the general populace in real-time and engage in a dialogue with them. In 2013, Amnesty International Czech Republic initiated the Human Libraries project. Now in its seventh year, the project creates opportunities for school adolescents to meet “human books”—individuals from marginalised groups who will tell their stories and respond to questions. The opportunity to be heard and seen and not be merely an abstraction—holds the greatest possibility for marginalised groups to address and change discriminatory attitudes.

Forging Ahead

The power residing in libraries to transform lives comes full circle when marginalised groups take it upon themselves to drive change through libraries. A village in the Satara district of Maharashtra famed until three years ago for its strawberry produce is now cultivating something quite different and just as nourishing. Following in the footsteps of the Welsh book village Hay-on-Wye, Bhilar village is now gaining fame for the libraries that it houses and the reading habit that it cultivates. As for the library started by garbage workers in a district in Turkey’s capital Ankara, it grew from a private library meant only for the sanitation workers and their families to a public library open to all.

Cover image courtesy: Yoab Anderson on Unsplash