Programming for the Literate

This note is part of a series that critiques the cult of literacy in libraries — exposing how reading, writing, and the book have been crowned as the only valid forms of knowledge, while everything else is silenced, excluded, or reshaped to fit the page. Check all the notes in this section's index.

The Performance of Inclusion

Libraries often present their programming as evidence of their community commitment. Storytimes, book clubs, author talks, writing workshops, literacy campaigns — all are framed as tools for access, empowerment, and participation. And to many, they are.

But these programs are not neutral containers. They reflect deep institutional assumptions about what counts as learning, what counts as knowledge, and what forms of expression deserve public support.

And at the heart of most library programming lies the same unspoken principle: reading is the path, writing is the goal.

The library serves the literate — or those it believes can be trained into literacy. Everyone else must adapt, or remain outside the invitation.

The Tyranny of Storytime

Storytime, perhaps the most emblematic public library program, offers a glimpse into this logic. It is presented as a gateway — not into storytelling, not into imagination, not into listening, but into reading. Children are read to so they can eventually read alone. The activity is not valued for its oral or communal dimensions, but as a pedagogical step toward solitary decoding.

But storytelling is not always a precursor to reading. In many cultures, it is the primary means of transmission — collective, embodied, living. It is not done by librarians with picture books. It is done by griots, by elders, by midwives, by firelight, by repetition, by improvisation. It lives in voice, not text. In cadence, not comprehension scores.

Yet these forms are rarely invited into library programming. And when they are, they are recontextualized as "cultural events," not as core educational infrastructure.

The griot becomes entertainment. The elder becomes a guest. The dancer becomes a novelty.

The institution remains literate at its core.

Whose Knowledge Is Served?

Library programming reflects the values of its designers — and often those designers are trained within the same literate, academic, Western traditions that shape collection and cataloging. They speak of "information needs," "early literacy," "outreach," and "engagement," but their frameworks rarely include non-literate ways of learning.

Programs for adults often center around resumes, digital skills, citizenship tests, and self-help. Rarely do they invite oral historians to speak, or host intergenerational circles, or offer spaces for listening as knowledge work.

The result is a community service model that reproduces exclusion — not out of hostility, but out of epistemic narrowness. The programs are open to all, but they are not made for all. They welcome those who read and write, and train others to join them. But they do not pause to ask whether reading and writing are always the right tools.

They do not ask what is lost when knowledge is always seated, silent, and textual.

Reimagining the Library as Learning Space

If libraries are to truly serve diverse communities, they must do more than translate text into accessible formats. They must invite ways of knowing that do not require text at all. They must design programs that begin not with literacy, but with listening.

This means inviting elders not to teach, but to speak.

It means building programs around breath, rhythm, movement — not as curiosities, but as forms of intellectual labor.

It means creating spaces where knowledge is not extracted, evaluated, or certified — but shared, embodied, remembered.

A library that only teaches people to read is a library that cannot hear.