I like the modernized quote from Marcus Tullius Cicero better than the strict Latin translation: "If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need."
Taken literally, what the Roman orator, statesman and lawyer wrote to a friend about an impending visit was, "If you have a garden in your library, nothing will be lacking."
There's no need to split Latin hairs on a spring Friday during the month containing National Library Week, however.
My point in mentioning Cicero's remark is, first, to draw the organic parallel--libraries and gardens both facilitate growth--and second, to apply its aptness to small, rural Arkansas communities.
As a state, we celebrate rich, natural environs. Yet if any building in town were to contend for the "Most Taken for Granted" award, the public library would lead the list. Chances are, your local library would also score high in a contest for "Least Understood Services Roster."
In one sense, libraries are still what they have always literally been: repositories for books. In another, libraries are also still what they have always functionally been: gateways to imagination and launch pads for learning.
But 21st century libraries exceed both their literal and functional foundations.
For starters, public libraries are one of the last vestiges of the truest democratic institutions. It's not unusual for 90 percent of a public library's operational funding to come from local property taxes. By and large, the library your community has is the one it taxes itself to have.
There are more than 9,000 such public library systems, comprising some 17,000 individual buildings and branches.
Public libraries are as different as the towns and peoples they serve, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services conducted a study in 2013 dedicated to analyzing small, rural libraries exclusively.
The study defined small as having a service area of less than 25,000, which it further subdivided into less than 10,000 and less than 2,500.
It defined rural using census definitions based on distance from urbanized areas: "fringe" being 5 miles removed, "distant" 10 miles, and "remote" 25 miles or more.
Defined as such, 93 percent of rural libraries are also small. But only half of small libraries are also rural. Combined, a total of 43 percent of the nation's 9,000 public libraries are both small and rural.
Here in the Natural State, we're a little anemic in percentage of small, rural libraries. With 55 public libraries, our dots on the report's scattershot national chart were dwarfed by states like Iowa (561 libraries), Kansas (311) and Nebraska (216).
Still, on the Walter Cronkite Investment Scale--the legendary newsman once said, "Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation"--we invest more in our libraries at a per capita rate than most of our Southern brethren.
Arkansas is also strongly represented at the Association for Rural and Small Libraries, where Southeast Arkansas Regional Library director Judy Leonard serves as president of its board.
And concerning Cicero's garden factor, travel site Thrillist ranked Arkansas 24th on its Most Beautiful State list, ahead of all other Southern states as well as Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska.
Book-lined shelves are still the dominant visual at most libraries, but services beyond book-borrowing have far outpaced the average local resident's awareness. Many libraries also offer ebooks, downloadable audiobooks, computer terminals, broadband Internet access, and programs and activities.
Technology hasn't changed their DNA as a premier knowledge and community resource--it's just changed the ways in which they deliver that value.
Celebrating libraries is easy for book lovers and readers. I well remember the local library in the small town where I attended elementary school, and the awe of being surrounded by books.
There's almost a surreal sense of pervasive knowledge, which, according to lore, Mark Twain summed up superbly.
"In a good bookroom," he reportedly said, "you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them."
Small, rural communities need their libraries more now than ever. Better reading among young people is a universal educational objective, and libraries are positioned to take point in that continuing crusade.
One of the best dynamics involving small, rural libraries is the major difference one person or family can make.
In Lawrence County, for example, when Bob and Paula Hutcherson donated their former furniture store building in Walnut Ridge back in 2006, it catapulted the local library's capability to serve the community.
At more than 14,000 square feet, the building not only enabled a large library expansion, but also provided needed storage space and allowed for the creation of a sizable, and subsequently well-used, meeting room.
This year's National Library Week theme was "Libraries Transform," which has been the ceaseless standard of libraries for centuries.
Consider how you can support and transform your own local library, remembering that any gift which aids a child's learning pays perpetual dividends.
The last word on this belongs to an undisputed genius. "The only thing you absolutely have to know," Albert Einstein said, "is the location of the library."
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Dana D. Kelley is a freelance writer from Jonesboro.
Editorial on 04/28/2017