Still very much in circulation

Boston Globe

28-04-2025

'Free for All,' part of PBS's 'Independent Lens' documentary series, airs on GBH 2 Tuesday at 10 p.m. and will be available for streaming on
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The Webster Free Circulating Library staff, New York City, c. 1904.
Credit: New York Public Library
Logsdon, who serves as narrator, is a library lover of long standing. By the time she was 12 she'd visited almost a hundred, in most of the 50 states. Overall, there are currently 17,00 public library buildings in the United States. It's useful to specify 'buildings,' since many public library systems have multiple facilities. The
After an extended introductory segment, the documentary visits the BPL, the first urban public library, founded in 1848. Visits are also paid to a neighborhood library on New York's Lower East Side, which has provided services to immigrants for more than a century; a library system in rural Oregon facing closure, because of lack of funding; and the Salt Lake City Public Library, whose public events to attract new patrons are pretty spectacular.
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Those visits occur within a basically chronological narrative. Expect to encounter the names of Melvil Dewey, who in addition to devising a certain decimal system of classification was a serial sexual harasser, and Andrew Carnegie, whose funding of more than 1600 public libraries in the United States was underwritten by robber-baron exploitation.
'Free for All' employs vintage photographs, archival and modern-day footage (book-return conveyor belts!), animation (not a good idea), even artwork by the painter Jacob Lawrence.
Young patrons at the self-checkout at the Presidio branch of the San Francisco Public Library.
Lucie Faulknor
There are also talking-head interviews. Some of the interviewees are well known, such as Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and Harvard historian Jill Lepore. Others aren't. One of the pleasures 'Free for All' has to offer is making the acquaintance of
Timmins, who works in the rural community of Seymour, sees her job as 'throwing a party every day.' Among the partygoers are a family with 14 kids who are being home-schooled. They use the library
a lot
.
That family is a reminder of the diversity (uh-oh, that word) of library patrons. They include home schoolers, computer users who don't have online access at home, immigrants taking English-language courses, homeless people keeping out of the cold. 'What I'm doing now as a librarian is a bit like being a social worker,' a San Francisco librarian says.
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There's so much in the documentary to like — and a fair amount not to. Logsdon braids together her family history and personal experiences with the larger narrative. It's an unnecessary attempt to enliven and humanize a story that's already plenty lively and humane. The result comes across as, at best, self-indulgent, and, at worst, distracting. A score that's alternately chirpy and goopy doesn't help.
Perhaps it's fitting that 'Free for All' offers a few causes for complaint. In so doing, it reflects its subject — and the double meaning of that title. Some of it will make you proud and feel inspired. Some of it will make you angry. Sometimes it may even make you tear up. Most of all, maybe, it'll make you glad you have a library card.
Wait, you do have a library card, don't you — and if you don't, why not?
Mark Feeney is a Globe arts writer
.
Mark Feeney can be reached at