Hands, Circles, Connections

I had a question from an international student who asked about classes to learn English. He was a pretty good speaker and I understood him fairly well. I was about to suggest a tutor when I found out he was only going to be in the country 2 months. I then thought of the Conversation Circles that are held weekly at Hardesty and called the literacy office to confirm the dates and times. I gave him the information and he was very appreciative.
--Jane, branch librarian

When I was a freshman in high school, my friends Philip and Mary and I boarded a dusty school bus one weekend and traveled three hours to stand on the side of the road and hold hands with strangers. The concept was admirable -- "Hands Across America" -- to create a great chain of humanity against poverty, or maybe it was for farmers, or to feed starving children in Africa? I don't rightly remember. Rosy predictions had that the entire country (this land is my land, this land is your land) would be crossed with hand-holding people, from sea to shining sea.

I was as for the whole idea and ideals of the endeavor as much as a crusade-loving 14-year-old can be, but the reality? It was... well, kind of ridiculous. There were maybe 20 or so of us, mostly high school students, and after we scrambled off the bus, we waited until the leader told us it was time: hold hands! For two minutes! Then clamber back onto the bus and head home.

There was no great chain across the country. There were wide, long gaps of empty, no-hand-holding spaces. Essentially, we traveled three hours to hold hands with each other, 20 or so of us, which we could have just as easily done at home, or at the mall, or outside a movie theatre.

This moment is what I think about, improbably, when I consider Jane's story of helping an international student practice his English skills.

Follow my logic here.

Librarians are connectors, in more ways than one. We connect people with information, of course, taking them to this resource or that -- try this ERIC database for your research paper in Early Childhood Education, or here are the books on Cherokee herbal remedies (to name two such connections I made this afternoon in my library).

But there are other and more important ways we act as connectors... ways that live up to the "Hands Across America" ideal while not falling into its roadside ridiculousness.

We connect people with other people. We recognize when someone has a need that someone else can help fulfill, as in the student who wanted help with his English.

But we also make connections in our own minds, which allow us to make those human connections, those great chains of meaning. Jane has worked in the library system for many years, and is aware of all of our resources, including the Ruth G. Hardman Adult Literacy service, including both its volunteer tutors and the regular "Conversations Circles" to allow ESL learners to practice speaking.

She listened to this man's request, which prompted her to consider the resources she knew might help him, and find exactly the thing that would work the best for him. She held the hand of one person (the literacy office) while holding her hand out to the student and inviting him to join this highly specific but really quite wonderful chain.

When I think back to that day on the bus to the middle of nowhere, to stand next to the road and hold hands with other people, the overwhelming feeling isn't one of failure. It's of the camaraderie and laughter I shared with friends and strangers on the way out and back. It's the sense that we were all together in a greater crusade (against poverty, or for farmers, or whatever it was)... we were making a connection to something greater than ourselves.

In libraries, we make those connections. But we don't have to board a bus to do it, and there are rarely gaps we can't overcome.