The People of the Library
Find out what loads of Library users are saying about the Austin Public Library.
 I Love the Library
What Libraries Mean to Me
Libraries and Kids
His Story: Jon Dee Graham
This is the second in a series of interviews conducted by Austin-based writer S. Kirk Walsh. Currently, she is working on a novel; her favorite place to write is the library.
 Singer/guitarist Jon Dee Graham is a native Texan, growing up in a small town on the Texas-Mexico border. Shortly after high school, he moved to Austin and attended the University of Texas. His most recent CD is "Full". For more information about his music and Austin shows, visit http://www.jondeegraham.com/.
I grew up in a little town on the Texas-Mexico border called Quemado. Population: 300 on a good day. There was not enough population to have funding for an actual library. All of these ladies got together and rented a little clapboard house and made their own library. Growing up, my mom was a ferocious reader, reading up to three books at a time. There was a book by the bed. There was a book in the living room. She had one she carried in the car in case she had to wait somewhere. Anyway, they had this homemade library. I just remember going there. I would not pick things specifically. I would go in randomly and whatever I saw, I would pick it up and I would read it. Occasionally, it would be taken away because it was inappropriate.
As what happens in these little rural communities, the ladies who were responsible for the library started dying off -- and none of the younger people wanted to step in. When I was fifteen, the library closed after ten years. They had probably between 5,000 and 8,000 books. They had to go somewhere. You've got to keep in mind, the closest city to where we were was San Antonio, which was almost 200 miles away. So, it wasn't like we could just take them over somewhere else. My mom took all of these books because we had a huge attic. I literally lived underneath the old library. I just remember wandering around the attic, box after box of books. It was paradise because I could read anything I wanted. When my mom passed away, my brother who lives in Kerrville took all of the books to the Kerrville Library and put them into the system. I don't know what happened to them after that, but the books are probably still wandering around Kerrville.
My next real library experience was when I came to University of Texas. Just sort of being overwhelmed by the notion if you wanted to see the first Bible ever printed, you could go look at it at the Harry Ransom Center. If you wanted to find some archaic book on Russian law, you could. I read somewhere about the Library of Congress in terms of the most robust medium to preserve records because everything now is on hard drive and disks. The long view, they determined, is the printed word on paper. I think that pretty much tells it.
My relationship to the library is completely different now because I have kids -- a twelve-year-old and a six-year-old. The six-year-old is learning to read, but mainly is read to constantly. We realized pretty early on if we were going to be buying all of these books, we would go broke because he'll burn through four books in a day. Now, the library is like one of our chores; it's like a regular stop. We go to Twin Oaks on Congress and Oltorf. Then, for a fancy trip, we go to the downtown library. It's absolutely nothing for us to walk out there with ten books, knowing that we're going to be back next week. As a parent, it's not less of a resource, it's just a different resource.
The twelve-year-old is a manga fanatic. Any kind of Japanese graphic novel. That's his deal. We have to go to the downtown branch for that. The twelve-year-old doesn't have broad tastes, but very precise, highly focused tastes -- and the library supplies it.
Most recent book checked out from the library: Kafka on the Shore by Huraki Murakami
Favorite author: Charles Bukowski
Local branch of the Austin Public Library: Twin Oaks |
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