Why our house is a library

On keeping a lot of unread books around

A true story from my diary

Hey y’all,

We were splashing around the pool when my son said, “They haven’t taught us that in school!” and I went into a short sermon.

You know those “IN THIS HOUSE…” signs people put up in their yards? We don’t have one, but if we did, it might read:

I don’t try to drill many things into my kids’ heads, but one thing I try to tell them over and over — especially important this time of year —  is what I wrote in Steal Like An Artist:

School is one thing. Education is another. The two don’t always overlap. Whether you’re in school or not, it’s always your job to get yourself an education.

But it’s like Jim Henson said: “Your kids… don’t remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.” 

One of the things we’ve tried hard to do in our house is to make it a place of learning while also making it as unlike school as possible. What this shakes out to, essentially, is thinking about the house as a library.

I’ve often joked that if I were to write a parenting book I’d call it Parent Like A Librarian.

At the library, there are strict rules for behavior that create an environment in which anyone can learn, but there is no agenda, no plan — only time, space, and resources.

The librarian is there to serve whoever comes through the door by connecting them with what they need.

The librarian creates and maintains a collection of materials, makes spaces in which people can work and study, and curates programming tailored to the interests of the humans they serve.

The librarian does not demand any results, does not ask us to be anything other than what we are.

The library is a truly lifelong learning environment — our relationship with the library never ends. As we grow and change, the librarian connects us with what we need.

Some photos of the “maker spaces” at the Chattanooga Public Library

Of course, one of the weird things about libraries these days is that as they adapt to serve their communities in contemporary times, there are fewer and fewer books to be found on the shelves. Browsing collections slowly disappear to make way for more computer terminals.

We live in a small bungalow, but most of its rooms feature floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

The majority of the books in our house are books we haven’t all read… yet!

We keep what Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls an “antilibrary”:

Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.¹

Here are a few short tales from just this past week in which our antilibrary featured prominently: