Looking Forward

As Ohio’s capital city, Columbus continues to experience incredible growth. Planning studies estimate that the Columbus region will gain 1 million new residents by the year 2050. The current U.S. Census Bureau results report that Columbus’ population grew 15.08% from 2010 to 2020, which makes Columbus one of the fastest growing cities in the Midwest, and one of only 14 cities nationwide to gain at least 100,000 residents over the past 10 years. Intel’s investment in U.S. chip manufacturing, with a “mega-site” on 1,000 acres in Licking County, also heralds a new age of growth for central Ohio and its workforce.

What does this mean for Columbus Metropolitan Library’s vision of a thriving community where wisdom prevails? It means the library keeps growing and keeps innovating. It has an enduring history of evolving to meet customer needs as the world around it changes, and the world is changing more rapidly than ever before.

Ohio is fortunate to have many talented authors who were either born here or found their passion for writing here. A few have shared their thoughts regarding the library’s future.

  • Panel 10 - 1 Wil Haygood.jpg

    Wil Haygood

    Journalist and award-winning author

    When I was a kid growing up in Columbus in the 1960s, one of the popular cartoons was The Jetsons. They were a family who lived in outer space, traveling around a moonlit galaxy on individualized spaceships. The spaceships looked mighty hip. My everyday reality, of course, was more down to earth. There was not a car in our family and I walked everywhere. Or caught the city bus on special occasions. On Saturdays my grandmother would give me money to catch the bus downtown to go to the Main Library on Grant Avenue. There were always school projects that took me to the big library to do research! I’d dive into the history and art sections, scouring for books. History fascinated me. So did maps. Wouldn’t it be amazing if there were a train system to pick people up - especially students who hailed from families without cars - and deliver them to the downtown library? The only stop it would make would be to the front door of the library. And it would deliver them back home. Like the experiences of outer space Jetsons family. I want there to be a future where young students can get to the Main Library with as little effort as possible.

  • Panel 10 - 4 Tiffany McDaniel.jpg

    Tiffany McDaniel

    Award-winning novelist and artist

    I was raised on books. My mother Betty knew the importance of reading. But growing up, we didn’t have a lot of money. My father Glen was a mechanic and welder, while my mother had manual labor jobs like tending an orchard and cleaning houses. Libraries gave me the opportunity to discover books without limitation. Though some things in my childhood have faded, I still remember the layout of the library. The grand entry with the dewy decimal cabinet, its brass pulls tarnished by the years. The large oak desk of the librarian just to the left, leading to the room full of dusty reference books. To the right, the children’s room where I could spend hours. Oftentimes I would sneak into the adult section that existed in the back. I still remember the metal shelves painted blue, peach, and cream. The line of windows opened to the outside. And there in the corner, a spot where the sun shined and where I could take a thick book off the shelf to be lost with the cool air and the sunshine. That’s what the future of the Columbus Metropolitan Library looks like to me. It looks like a girl reading a book like a secret in the crisp air and sunshine. It looks like those memories already made, and new ones yet to be. Because in a library, the story is never finished. Here’s to the next 150 years of falling in love with books and celebrating the libraries we call home.

  • Panel 10 - 6 Janet Beard - alt.jpg

    Janet Beard

    Award-winning novelist

    These days predicting the future can be frightening, but I am not at all scared to imagine the future of Columbus Metropolitan Library. In an ever-changing world, the library will continue to be what it is now: a place where learning, community, and democracy thrive. During my years in Columbus, the city has undergone rapid growth and change, but the libraries have been a constant, whether I am visiting online for research or in-person for a community event with my daughter. I am sure the library will continue to evolve to meet the needs of the future, just as libraries have incorporated computers, eBooks, and most recently, COVID tests, in the years since my childhood, when my local library offered little more than words on paper. Still, I have great nostalgia, not just for that modest space, but for all the imagined places I visited in the pages of its books. Those places, even if they aren’t real, can exist forever, and I have faith that they will live on in Columbus Metropolitan Library.

  • Panel 10 - 2 Achea Redd.jpg

    Achea Redd

    Author, public speaker, and mental health advocate

    The library of the future looks much like a gathering place for the community to come together, no matter your walk of life, and safely have discussions about politics, religion, race, art, education, and personal growth just to name a few. We have lost the tolerance for healthy debate in this country and I truly believe that there’s more that connects us than that divides us. The library of the future has the opportunity to be the catalyst of that change in the narrative.

  • Panel 10 - 5 Andrew Welsh-Hugging.jpg

    Andrew Welsh-Huggins

    Journalist and novelist

    In Ray Bradbury's 1950 short story “The Long Rain,” human colonists on Venus seek shelter in Sun Domes, strategically based reprieves from the planet’s constant rain and dangerous inhabitants. I imagine Columbus library branches of the future as similar respites from an increasingly chaotic world. Libraries today are already some of the country’s last remaining public spaces where people can gather free of corporate rules and political interference. I imagine this role only expanding years from now as branches serve as welcoming public chambers of information, imagination, and physical and intellectual safety.

  • Panel 10 - 3 Robin Yocum.jpg

    Robin Yocum

    Journalist and best-selling novelist

    I’m certainly not a great prognosticator. After all, I’m the one who famously said, “No one is going to pay good money for water in plastic bottles.” However, I believe the challenges that libraries will face will be competently met by the people who have dedicated their working lives to library science – the people who create the programs, purchase materials, research the archives, and keep our libraries open. We must rely on them to see the future and meet the needs of our public in general and our children in particular. Thirty years ago, few could have foreseen the digital revolution, but our libraries did and adjusted accordingly. I don’t know what the next revolution will be, but I have every confidence that our libraries and the individuals who run them will be ready for that challenge.

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Looking Forward