Indie Lens Pop-Up and the Lillie M. Evans Library will host an event on Thursday, April 24th at 6pm featuring a shortened, preview version of “Free for All: The Public Library” followed by a community discussion. Help us celebrate libraries with this free 1-hour premier in LME Library’s large meeting room. “Free for All: The Public Library” tells the story of the quiet revolutionaries who created a civic institution where everything is free and the doors are open to all.
As children, we took our local libraries for granted. They were as constant as the sun rising, as freely accessible as the air we breathed. Libraries felt like birthrights, alongside public schools, parks, and roads—part of the infrastructure of a thriving democracy. It wasn’t until we grew older, until life began to challenge those certainties, that we saw libraries in a different light.
The public library is one of America’s most valued yet endangered institutions. Director Dawn Logsdon travels the United States, discovering historic and modern-day figures, especially women, who contributed to the library’s integral position within democracy. “Free for All: The Public Library” chronicles the evolution of the nation’s public libraries, tracing the battles over who can enter, what belongs there, and who makes these decisions, while exploring how public commons are defined and defended.
Thanks to Independent Lens and our local PBS station, WTVP, for bringing this program and its resources to LME Library. All ages are welcome! The full length version of “Free for All: The Public Library” debuts on PBS on Tuesday, April 29. More information about this and other library programs can be found on the Lillie M. Evans Library website at lmelibrary.org.
