What do we call a library?

On 24th June, our brother Alfredo was invited to talk with rural librarians from Colombia, within the framework of an academic practice for the University of Nariño. Between metaphors and profundities, Alfredo presented the peasant and Andean convictions of the Rural Libraries Network. Here are some excerpts from his intervention:

- “To talk about a path we have to talk about a starting point, where we want to start walking, but also about the point where we want to get to. The usual way is that many people begin, not to walk but to go past, run and slip, to move with a proposal and, at some point, in the midst of agitation, sweat and fatigue, they realize that they do not even know why they are running or what weight they are carrying. And that's if they have the disposition to realize it.

- Before embarking on the life path of a library, we should agree on what we understand by library, what a library means to us. Because the risk is that we end up replicating what we have inadvertently ended up normalizing, what the dominant system understands by library. In many ways, the qualities of our journeys and our libraries have to do with the universes of words.

- If we had to compare the library with fruit, the questions when feeling the fruit would be, for example: is this fruit from here or is it imported? Is this native seed or is it laboratory seed? Is this farm or agro-industry? Was it grown with free-range compost or with agrochemicals?

Because there is fruit that looks like plastic and is very rich, but at the same time it turns out to be toxic. Just as there is fruit without an extravagant appearance, but very nutritious and without tricks. In short, is this natural or is it transgenic? Are they genuine or are they imposed, have they been generated in the community or have they been put without the participation of the people?

- A library can be genuine when its origin, its location, infrastructure, staff, but, above all, its content, are its own. (…) In an original library the earth is not only present, but the earth speaks, says, teaches; her voice is heard and reflected on the walls and in the books; the land and her children are real protagonists of that path. It has to coincide with what we are, what we have been, but also with what we dream of being and with what inner dream.

- The library begins to exist when we need it, and grows more when it becomes a demand. So she reaches adulthood when we give birth to her. The library is born when the community knows that its permanence depends on itself.

- The library has to be part of the community's cultivation, it has to be nurtured and engaged with practices that in the depths of our soul we recognize as our own; there is blood, there is kinship, I have empathy, I feel good, they have not imposed on me, it has germinated because the earth is blessed and favorable. We are made of that very substance.

- The primary vital force of the Network is in the lives of the community members themselves. The first step is to know that the community members themselves are the teachers in the Assemblies, they support the issues, pose the problems, and explain the notions. Everyone has the floor. We all know that we all know.

- The library in terms of a barn of wisdoms, in terms of an arsenal of knowledge, is a natural part of the community; indigenous peasant communities are already libraries themselves. Millennia and generations live in them; in their genes is what we knew and know; in their practices what helps to flourish flourishes (…) In songs, games, tools, conversations, cooking, medicine, there is a wisdom that would require millions of shelves to store; that knowledge has its living territory in people and these people have in their space their organic dwelling, their reciprocal landscape, their blessed habitat, their essential refuge, the shelter of their mystery.”