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San Francisco Chronicle​

‘Free for All' documentary highlights libraries' cultural legacy amid rising censorship and funding threats

Libraries are under assault. Those who would censor what children or even adults read demand book banning. Reactionaries have stormed drag queen storytelling events, trying to stop them, including an incident in 2022 when members of the Proud Boys invaded a reading at the San Lorenzo Public Library. At the end of March, the Trump Administration gutted the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the federal agency that provides funding to public libraries. What will be lost if the anti-library forces get their way is made manifest in San Francisco filmmakers Dawn Logsdon and Lucie Faulknor's documentary, 'Free for All: The Public Library.' Created over 10 years and premiering as part of the PBS series 'Independent Lens' on Tuesday, April 29, the film argues for the importance and continued relevance of the institution. Logsdon's own story provides the film's spine. Her parents were teachers who would load her and her sister in the car every summer to crisscross the country on road trips. In every place the family stayed, the girls would get temporary library cards so they could spend the days buried in a book. It was never Logsdon's intention to include her own story in the documentary, but the film needed connective tissue. 'A year into the edit, all these stories were not holding together into a coherent narrative,' Logsdon admitted. 'The editor said, 'You have to put yourself into the story and guide us through it.'' Much like those trips Logsdon took as a child, 'Free for All' travels back and forth across America to libraries big and small, explicating both the history of the library and its place in contemporary society. Logsdon and Faulknor's original intent was to focus solely on three libraries in San Francisco and in the New York boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn. But when they screened a sample reel they shot in San Francisco at an American Library Association meeting, they heard a repeated sentiment that the San Francisco Public Library is a wonderful organization that benefits from robust public support. In other places, keeping the library open can be a daunting prospect. 'The small rural libraries are especially hard hit,' Fauklnor said. 'So, we decided to take it around the country.' Hearing about nationwide challenges facing libraries prompted the filmmakers to change the focus of their film to one that not only looks at the state of the American library today but also at the library's place in American society since Ben Franklin established the Library Company of Philadelphia in 1731. San Francisco is still a large part of the documentary, as are other big city libraries, but in opening up the film, Logsdon and Faulknor introduce a range of experience. In small-town Wisconsin, librarian Elizabeth Timmons not only knows all of her patrons' names, but she also saves books for them because she knows them so well. In that same library, a homeschool mom brings her many children there on a weekly outing. She expresses discomfort with some of the books on the shelves but still supports the library. In Baton Rouge, La., the filmmakers found a particularly special subject in ebullient Tameka Roby, who drives a book mobile as part of outreach efforts. 'Tameka is a really great blend of being passionate about her work and also funny and insightful,' Logsdon said. 'We could have made a whole film about her easily.' The historical portion of the documentary is expansive, covering everything from Scottish American robber baron and philanthropist Andrew Carnagie's four-decade project building libraries around the world to pioneering New York librarian Ernestine Rose, who hired the first African American librarians. That number would include Regina Andrews, who oversaw the Harlem branch during the flowering of the Harlem Renaissance. In the run up to the broadcast, PBS offered a shorter version of 'Free for All' to screen in libraries and community centers. They were expecting 30 to 40 requests. They received more than 400, a testament to the library's continuing relevance. 'We want to preach to the choir because we need them to lift the voices up, but we want to go beyond the choir as well to possibly get new members,' said Faulknor. 'Not to say I'm a recruiter or anything, but I feel like it's important for people to see these are our spaces. We paid for them. We have paid for them for the last 150 years.'