Social Fabric

I found Dormont’s article, “The French connection: Remembering the American librarians of post-WWI France” on ALA’s website under “Library News.” Some things from this article struck me: “Economic reconstruction and health care were priorities, but Morgan [who mobilized the volunteer movement for relief activities and was the daughter of J.P. Morgan] believed that education and recreation played as much of a role in reweaving the social fabric of these communities.” She spearheaded efforts to provide shop and home economics classes, as well as kindergarten services, cinemas, sports, and libraries. What would I consider to be the most important aspects of my social fabric? What weaves and bonds me together and more tightly with others? Do I enhance that fabric or am I like an ugly stain, threatening to spread?

My immediate social fabric is my family. I will always consider their needs first. But unless we are completely self-sufficient, that fabric will quickly unravel. Nickols, Collier, and Holland (2015) share:

               

Individuals fret about their families, about family relationships, finances, education, health, housing, and happiness…They fret about new connections, changing roles, relocation, and securing resources. As they go about their personal lives, their micro-level decisions on these family matters accumulate into broad social changes culminating in greater complexity of families and communities today (p. 16).

I am amazed by Morgan’s vision to rebuild the basic needs of the community, things that I take for granted every day. Libraries and recreational centers don’t just provide for our needs, they make us resources for one another by gathering us together for emotional support.

Dormont also shares, “Prior to the war, the focus of French librarianship was still on collection and conservation, with municipal libraries catering mostly to scholarly research. The field was male-dominated, often by scholars more preoccupied with the preservation of the books than the needs of the reader.” We’ve come so far - libraries are now known as the great democratizers and I cannot stray from that vision in my day-to-day responsibilities.

References

Dormont, M. 2017 February 16. “The French connection: Remembering the American librarians of post-WWI France. American Libraries Magazine. Retrieved from https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2017/02/16/french-connection-librarians-wwi-france/

Nickols, S. s., Collier, B. J., & Holland, J. M. (2015). Families in the Social Fabric: Unraveling or Reweaving? Considerations for Family and Consumer Sciences. Journal Of Family & Consumer Sciences, 107(1), 10-18.