Resa Mai
Contents
Guest
Resa Mai is a hands-on public library Director in Illinois. She facilitates partnerships within her community and across the state to create engaging exciting programs. Currently while negotiating a large library addition she is a Lions Club International Vice President and Management Mentor. She has been an active Library advocate since early elementary school when she fell in love with the Velveteen Rabbit and with the idea that the entire world was accessible to her just inside the doors of her library.
She has worked in libraries for over 15 years, has been a public speaker and presenter for 20 years. As a lifelong learner she understands that education is varied and personal; that it is a passage as well as a destination. Her presentation style is relaxed, inviting, engaging and ultimately open-ended.
"With a single comment and with the library, a thousand different people will explore a thousand different things and will become everything and anything at all. Without the library they'd all be the same and would remain the same as they always were and as they always will be."
Credits
Without Libraries was created to provide librarians a platform to share stories about education, discuss current programs, and consider life without libraries. Libraries provide access to information and educational resources, promoting literacy, critical thinking skills, and community building by offering a safe space for people to learn, research, and connect with others. Join the conversation at Past Forward.
Guest: Resa Mai
Produced by: Past Forward
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Transcription
Resa Mai: With a single comment and with the library, a thousand different people will explore a thousand different things and will become everything and anything at all. Without the library they'd all be the same and would remain the same as they always were and as they always will be.
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Without libraries, we would be the same. No, not the same as we currently are, but we would all be the same as each other. We would have one provided point of view and one history. We would all be told one thing and would not have any other way to grow within it. I like to think of the night sky. If we were told that the stars in the sky were pinpricks in a blue velvet cloth, then that's all they would be. If someone pointed out to us a string of holes and said that they were called Orion and that they were a hunter's belt, well that is as far as it would go.
Without libraries, the night sky would be a single dark dimension. But it's not, and we do have libraries. We can look at the sky, perhaps even be told about the indigo velvet and Orion the Hunter, and with a library, our worlds open up. Within the library, that whole phrase becomes limitless. Someone could come to the library and research velvet and then explore the world of luxury fabrics. Or the word indigo might spark their imagination. And then prisms and rainbows would explode from the pages and resources of their library. Orion could become the first astrological character someone meets. And the next thing you know, they're traveling through time and space with mythology. Astrology. Astronomy that dance across the night sky and twirling and swirling in cosmic showers and breathtaking aurora displays within the library.
A child can check out a telescope from the library of things. They can see the craters on the moon. They can learn about the moon, study moon rocks, and then use a borrowed microscope to study the rocks all around them. Another child might want to learn about the hunter, about the wild game, venison, foraging for food and fishing. Because of their library and their library of things, that child can check out a fishing pole and bring the library on adventures with them.
With a single comment and with the library a thousand different people will explore a thousand different things and will become everything and anything at all. Without the library they'd all be the same and would remain the same as they always were and as they always will be. Without the library the night sky would remain a dark blue blanket. However, with the library, the skies are as expansive and as limitless as we are.
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