[00:04:27] Michael: Interesting. Would you say that being as an English teacher then definitely paved the way and helped a lot easier with then you opening Books & Books and what you do now?

[00:04:40] Mitchell Kaplan: Being an English teacher taught me a whole bunch of stuff. It allows me to stand up in front of people and not be nervous about speaking, because if you're going to have to stand up in front of 250 kids a day, that quickly cures you of any insecurity you have about public speaking. At the same time, I understood very, very clearly how a book could really excite a kid. These are not necessarily even the books that I taught, but books that I might recommend or they tell me about a book that they loved.

Then I really began to understand that there was something about the book culture that drew people together. It was the world of ideas, the way ideas were transmitted in our culture through books. That's what really taught me that when I wanted to open a bookstore, I wanted that bookstore to also be a place where people came and hung out and discussed things and heard authors speak. It's worked out beautifully for me. Although I've taken the road less traveled, not everybody opens a bookstore. I can't imagine, as I sit back, a better life for me personally.

[00:06:12] Michael: Wow, that's amazing. You've also played a very pivotal role in the success of the Miami Book Fair. What was the vision behind the fair originally when it was first launched, and how has it evolved over the years to become a model for other fairs across the country?

[00:06:27] Mitchell Kaplan: We became a model because we were early. We were one of the first ones. I'm going to be without humility, I'm going to say it was really good from the beginning. People in other cities came to see it, and they went, "Wow, if Miami can do this, we can do it," because Miami at that time was not viewed as a very cosmopolitan city. I would often ask for an author to come down to the book fair, and almost invariably the publisher would say, "I've got this author that's talking about aging and talking about how you deal with getting old," because the median age in Miami, everyone thought was just old in the '80s. It's changed completely.

I knew from having the bookstore, that people, customers were buying books that were as sophisticated as anywhere else in the country. I knew that there would always be an audience if we could get this book fair off the ground. It did. From the very beginning, we had big full audiences for no matter which authors we presented.

[00:07:38] Michael: Wow, that's amazing. I know that. I've been, and I absolutely love it. I feel like the community that it shows that even in an age now with technology, social media being prominent, that there is still people out there that love the art that is literature and books, and that there's still a community for that.

[00:07:56] Mitchell Kaplan: Do you remember any of the authors you saw?

[00:07:59] Michael: Oh, it's been a while. I think I saw Dave Barry one time. Love Dave Barry. He's great. My family likes to go every year, and they absolutely love it. It's just great. It's a great thing that you've created. Glad you did that. You've also been deeply involved in both, like I said, the literary world and bookstore community. How do you see libraries playing a unique role in supporting literary culture? What do you think is also at stake when we see libraries facing closures and budget cuts, especially in a community like ours in Orange County here?

[00:08:37] Mitchell Kaplan: The beautiful thing about a library is it gives access to everyone. That's the ultimate in democracy is when you can walk into a library and at your fingertips, have all that knowledge that the library possesses. I don't think our democracy can survive not having libraries.We're fortunate in Miami-Dade County, we have a pretty vibrant library system. I think early on there was an extra half-penny sales tax that went to the library, which kept it in really good stead.

I've always been a real proponent of libraries. I don't see libraries as an opposition to bookstores. A reader is a reader is a reader. If you read something, you'll want to come in and buy it at some point as well. We often work in tandem with one another, for sure.

[00:09:33] Michael: That's amazing. I definitely think as what Brandon and I are fighting for and everything, that we see the importance in keeping libraries alive. I'm glad that you see that they are still just as important in collaboration with bookstores like yours as well, which is great.

[00:09:49] Brandon: I would say you've been an advocate for the importance of free expression, especially in literature and libraries being like a source of unlimited knowledge. How would you say book banning and censorship affects the larger fight for intellectual freedom in libraries and bookstores?

[00:10:10] Mitchell Kaplan: Clearly, I think book banning is a blot on our body politic right now. It's a cynical effort by those in government to try to wield power in a lot of ways. I also see book banning as being the tip of the iceberg. The bottom of the iceberg is an attempt really to do away with public education as much as anything else. There has been this desire to turn public education away from its democratic ideals and turn it into something that's very closely resembling something that you would find in a Sunday school. The amount of people who are trying to change curricula and all of that. That goes hand in hand with these people trying to limit the kinds of books that either teachers can teach or kids can read. To answer your question, yes, it affects libraries and bookstores greatly. Will it in the future? I certainly hope not, but I'm not feeling very positive these days given where we are politically.

[00:11:36] Michael: It's very unfortunate. How do you think the community, both locally for you in Miami-Dade and nationally, can fight back against these attempts to restrict access to books?

[00:11:51] Mitchell Kaplan: There's all kinds of things. There are things out there that you can see that are the citizens' guides to what to do. It's all over the internet. Clearly, what we have to do is push back. We've been pushing back in Miami-Dade County in the state of Florida. That pushback is really helping. PEN America opened up a chapter in Florida. They've taken the book banners to court.

We have a group here that we call the Freadom Coalition, F-R-E-A-D-O-M, the Freadom Coalition, and it's made up of a lot of different smaller community-based organizations. What they're doing is showing up at school board meetings, monitor everything going on in the school board because I think that's where the fights need to happen, is on this extreme granular level. There are larger national groups like the ACLU, the National Coalition Against Censorship. All of these groups, I am sure, are going to be fighting for the safety of the artists.

[00:12:59] Brandon: You've talked about how Books & Books it's a lot more than just purchasing a book and that it's a gathering space for all kinds of literary cultural events. Looking at that now, what has been the most rewarding aspect of creating that space, and how do you see other independent bookstores contributing to the survival of their local communities' cultures and literary knowledge?

[00:13:31] Mitchell Kaplan: I think what we're seeing now is something really good. I'm very hopeful. I'm seeing a lot of younger people coming into the stores. People like you. Are there good bookstores where you are? Is there a good indie bookstore around you?

[00:13:52] Michael: We actually have a lot of independent bookstores in Orange where we are that are still thriving. That makes me happy to see. I'm glad that you say that you're seeing a lot of kids in Gen Z and our age still going to bookstores because that shows that it's not a dying environment yet.

[00:14:10] Mitchell Kaplan: It's not at all. You know what I mean? Years ago we used to think it was. We used to think that we were following our customers to their graves. The last customer would buy a book and then he would die, and then we'd have to close up, but that's not happening anymore, really. Young people are just flocking into the store, and I'm loving that.

[00:14:31] Michael: Amazing.

[00:14:31] Mitchell Kaplan: I love to see that because really I've always talked about developing the next generation of readers and I'm finally beginning to see that happen. It's everything. It's book talk. It's just everywhere. It's in the air. People are reading sophisticated things. They're reading romance, they're reading science fiction and fantasy, but they're also reading a lot of public interest stuff. Your generation is really engaged and I'm really happy about that. Civically engaged.

[00:15:03] Michael: I'm glad you said that because I think that that's one of the good things still with internet becoming more prominent with stuff, like you said, like book talk where it shows that there is an audience that is still looking at their favorite creator to tell them, "What should I read next?" Or, "What are you reading? What do you like?" It still shows that there is good and that there's a community for that even amongst for kids our age.

[00:15:25] Mitchell Kaplan: Most definitely. That's what gives me a lot of hope, a huge amount of hope. I do think that nationally there are groups growing in order to push back. It's not a secret, but the truth is that a majority of Americans are against the banning of books. They're against all of this. The other thing I would stress is it has to be fought on a local level. Local, local, local.

I'll give you a good example of why the libraries in Miami-Dade County are pretty good. In the state of Florida, the libraries are under the auspices of the mayors of each county. We have a really good progressive mayor who oversees our libraries. She would never, ever do anything to stop the sale of a book. I am sure. That's something which we all have to pay close attention to in that case.

[00:16:26] Michael: Absolutely. I want to go back to the Miami Book Fair for a minute because as a co-founder, you have welcomed over 300 authors and you've had a front-row seat to a huge power of storytelling. How do you think that kind of book's ban from libraries affect the broader cultural understanding of different identities and experiences and perspectives as well?

[00:16:48] Mitchell Kaplan: Anytime you limit any kinds of books-- A book is a great empathy machine. If you limit a book from being distributed, you take empathy away from what's being banned. On the flip side, if some of these books do get banned, people become a little bit more aware of them and they may want to seek them out, but it's having a real effect on authors because a lot of authors, the way they make their living is by going into libraries and schools and they get a small stipend for doing that. The book banning is harming them from actually making those trips. Therefore, other people are not meeting those authors and being exposed to an entirely different mindset. Book banning is just negative on every single level you can imagine.

[00:17:39] Michael: Absolutely.

[00:17:40] Brandon: I like what you just said about reverse psychology. If you tell someone not to do something, it makes them want to do it a little more. Then looking at that with books and banning books and the censorship that we see increasing, what do you think book fairs specifically do in building a community around diverse voices heard in all these books that may or may not be banned?

[00:18:08] Mitchell Kaplan: Let me make one thing really clear before we go further. Selection is not book banning. Years and years and years ago with Judy Blume and others, there were groups that were coming out against her books, and they were trying to restrict the books and we had to argue about that. Where it really falls into an unconstitutional action is when the government comes in and begins to ban a book. That's a really important distinction. Right now we're seeing, whether it's in Florida or whether it's nationally, the government is trying to come in and control the narrative completely.

Then to answer, Brandon, your question specifically, a book fair, and our book fair specifically, has been a wonderful vehicle to bring the entire disparate community of Miami-Dade County together. As Michael can tell you, it's a crazy melange of so many different people who live here, different cultures. Dave Barry, I mentioned, Dave Barry says the reason why driving is so crazy in Miami is everyone is driving using the rules of the road from the countries that they came from, so it's this crazy hodgepodge of driving.

What the book fair has done, because we have things in Spanish, things in English, things in Creole, is we tried to construct a gigantic tent under which the entire city and county could feel comfortable being under. To a large extent, we've succeeded with that. We've had French writers, we have Asian writers, we have Spanish from Cuba or Latin America. There is that incredible, multicultural, important vehicle that we have to try to keep our city from blowing up.

[00:20:12] Michael: Absolutely. You and I could talk forever about the state of the driving in Florida because it's-- that's a separate conversation for another day, but you know what, we'll get past that. I want to talk about given your leadership role within the Miami Book Fair and the literary center at Miami-Dade College, what changes or actions would you like to see in the way we advocate for libraries and bookstores in the face of budget cuts, censorship, and closures around the country?

[00:20:39] Mitchell Kaplan: Yes. Wow. When you're asking me what I would like to see and how I would like to see these things morph, I think it all comes down to one very important thing that we've all learned, and that is that we have to vote and have to really engage people and understand the consequences of their action. There's so much disinformation out there that a book can help clarify all of that. Now more than ever, we need independent bookstores, independent publishers, we need book fairs, we need schools like yours that are encouraging you to do these kinds of projects. We need libraries to be able to make sure that we all can be operating from a point of view where we have a shared reality that we're living in and if not, our world, literally the social strictures that keep us bound will loosen, and then we'll be gone. We just have to fight it. In many ways, it's a gorilla battle, it's hand-to-hand combat, but it's something that is so crucial and something that I never thought I would have to be doing at this point in my life. It's very secular in terms of the way I see this.

[00:21:58] Michael: Yes, absolutely.

[00:22:00] Mitchell Kaplan: I am so heartened by the fact that Michael, you and Brandon are able to take this on and be ambassadors for this. How are your fellow students responding to it all?

[00:22:14] Michael: It's interesting because obviously, I think a lot, especially for college students like talking about libraries, we use the library every day, whether it's kids go to do homework or check out a book for class or whatever. A lot of people care about what we are fighting for and it's definitely resonating with people, and we just want to get what we are out trying to fight for to as many people as possible. I'm happy to see, I think Brandon will probably agree, the amount of people that are responding positively to what we're doing and that they care as well, for sure.

[00:22:46] Brandon: Yes, definitely. I think, excuse me, like we said, when you look at Gen Z or kids our age, they tend to rally together and fight against censorship and not even just talking about libraries and books, just in general. I think we have a very strong mentality about freedom and democracy, but now looking at public spaces like library specifically, how do you think individuals and just communities in the future and now can come together to defend the public spaces like libraries and how could we defend and hold onto that knowledge to make sure that it's protected and support for our future generations to come.

[00:23:37] Mitchell Kaplan: I thank you, Brandon, for that. Again, I'll come down to it's very granular. You have to organize, you have to do whatever you can do, and you're doing it now with this podcast, you have to vote, you have to look at your school boards, look to see who runs the library. Is it the mayor, is it the city manager who runs the library? At that case, you just have to make sure that what you are doing is something which is effective, but organizing and educating are two things that are so very important.

[00:24:18] Michael: Absolutely. Before we get to our last segue out, I just want to know in your opinion, do you see that libraries are-- do you see them being around 10, 15 years from now, or do you think they are something that will stick, or what's your opinion on that?

[00:24:37] Mitchell Kaplan: I think libraries will be here as long as books are here.

[00:24:40] Michael: I agree.

[00:24:41] Mitchell Kaplan: I think people are moving away from the digital aspects of reading, they want the real book. Libraries provide another function beyond just checking out a book, they become a third space, another space like a bookstore where you come, you hang out, you bring your kids, you can read to your kids, many places there's good air conditioning.

[00:25:04] Michael: That's true.

[00:25:05] Mitchell Kaplan: A library it's as crucial to me as the neighborhood, anything else, it becomes an amazingly powerful force in a community.

[00:25:22] Michael: Yes. I hope other people see that as well like you just said. I hope that that's how things continue to move for the next however many years, for sure.

[00:25:32] Mitchell Kaplan: Yes. Let's hope.

[00:25:33] Michael: Let's hope. Thank you, Mitchell, so much for telling everybody your incredible story. This has been episode two of Without Libraries, a three-part podcast series, brought to you by Chapman University's 2025 Bateman competition team for EveryLibrary in collaboration with Past Forward. If you want to learn more about EveryLibrary and what we are fighting for, you can follow our Instagram at EveryLibrary, see you, and help us by signing the petition which will be linked in the bio for this episode. Thank you for listening, and we will see you next time.

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[00:26:04] Voiceover: 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. This microcast was created to provide librarians a platform to share stories about education, discuss current programs, and consider life without libraries. For more information, visit pastforward.com or follow us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.