Earlier this year I was honored by an invitation from Central State College, Edmond, Oklahoma, where I had been Writer in Residence in 1967, to assist in the opening ceremonies for their new library. I prepared the kind of speech that seemed appropriate.
A library, I planned to say, is the core of an institution. It is the expression of that institution’s personality. As is the library, so will the school or the college be. The world assesses the quality of an institution by its library. It has been said that you can judge a man by his friends. He is born to his relatives; his friends he chooses for himself. But I am not sure that that is true. Chance and propinquity choose our friends for us. We have to make friends among our neighbors, our classmates, our brother officers, our associates in business. Indeed it might be said that success in life depends upon our ability to make friends among the people with whom we have to work. Our library, we make ourselves.
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