Several years ago, I was invited to speak to Huntley High School journalism students. While I’m fairly decent at public speaking, I’m not very good at talking to students because I’m pretty sure I tell students things about myself teachers really wish I didn’t, like how I (a professional journalist and newspaper owner…of all things) only took one journalism class in my entire life and never graduated college let alone with a degree in journalism. My entire education in news was done on the job.
During the talk, a particularly astute student asked me if I found it hard to write editorials to a demographic of people a generation older than I was.
Honestly, the question caught me off guard because up until then, I never considered it. I hadn’t had any complaints from readers or anyone writing in saying, “Hey, buddy, you’re way off base here. Go back to the benches.”
But the question got me thinking from then on about relevance.
While I ultimately decided that the topics I chose to write about spanned the generation gap, it did occur to me (and since I have experienced) that maintaining relevance gets more difficult the older you get. Mostly because you like things you like and with a world that seems ever changing (yet paradoxically ever staying the same) you get tired of change and just want some touchstones in your life. Like the music you listened to in your youth or the clothes you wore fifteen years ago.
But for other things, you have to adapt and progress and move on with the times.
This includes institutions.
On the cover of this edition, you’re getting a sneak peak at the Huntley Area Public Library’s renovations. HAPL Head of Marking Doug Cataldo and Director Frank Novak generously offered me and My Huntley News Reporter Michelle Moreno a first-look tour of the new digs, and I have to say that not only is the new library unrecognizable (in a very good way) from what patrons have known in the past, but it is successfully adapting to the times.
For many years the HAPL has said “libraries aren’t just about books anymore.” And they’re not. In the Twenty-first Century, libraries need to be more than books. Way more than books. And what the new HAPL is offering goes way beyond books to include even things like full video and audio production studios. You can read more about the library’s new state-of-the-art amenities and services in the full story in this edition. This Happy Trails isn’t about the tactile (if you will) things the library does but the spirit of the library.
I don’t oftentimes highlight a particular business or institution in my Happy Trails for fear of being called bias, but I’ve always had a soft heart for libraries because they’re one of my touchstones, and watching them change can be difficult for me because I still remember the days of card catalogs and yearn for those mighty oak displays with all the little drawers that contained, in one way or another, the answers to all your questions, if you only took a moment to thumb through them.
But after my tour of the new HAPL I was won over, and their changes and advancements only further supported my belief that libraries are a great equalizer in any community. They’re truly unbiased and give everyone an equal opportunity at knowledge, which to me is what libraries have always done and will always continue to do: they don’t lend books, they lend knowledge.
Sadly, in our current world structure, knowledge is not easily attainable (despite the internet) and, in many respects, very classist, where the cream gets the crop and others are left pecking at the scraps.
It’s a harsh way to put it but tell me I’m wrong.
Library’s minimize or erase any of those walls our culture has built up…for free…and provides us all an equal opportunity at learning. So the Huntley Library’s expansion is more than just a big and shiny new building (with lots of natural light, by the way!). It’s one of greater reach than four new walls and one of expanded inclusion, while like Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty sang, remaining “ever the same” in their commitment to this community. In my opinion dedication like that not only deserves some special attention from time to time (if you want to call one little publisher of a little newspaper in Northwest Illinois a granter of special attention!) but spans the generations.
