The Iowa City Public Library Bright Future: Celebrating the Iowa City Public Library fundraising event was hosted Friday by the ICPL Friends Foundation — a foundation that seeks to strengthen and support the institution through its fundraising programs and promotion of the resources available at the library.
“It’s a building-wide event. We’re taking over the whole space,” Kami Zbanek Hill, a senior library assistant with ICPL Friends Foundation, said.
The evening began with a reception where people mingled and participated in a 60-piece silent auction. Once the library had closed, people had access to the rest of the building and activities planned for the evening.
On the first floor of the library, activities included access to the book bike, live music, and a visit from Raptology and their raptors in the children’s area. On the second floor were poetry readings from IC Speaks poets and This Is Flammable poets in the teen center, access to the digital media lab, an art gallery participants will have the opportunity to contribute to, and a treasure hunt with collection services.
The foundation originally hoped to sell 100 tickets for the event. Then, when they met that goal, they hoped to sell 200. They sold 250 tickets for the event, with people still reaching out to see if there was space to attend the event.
Katie Roche, the development director with ICPL Friends Foundation, said approximately 20 percent of people who attended received their tickets for free thanks to sponsors of the event who generated community tickets.
“It’s going to benefit them because they get to come to a fun event, but then they’re also able to learn more and deepen their understanding of the library and network and socialize with other members of the community,” Roche said. “I think the way that we get through hard times in our community, and one of the reasons Iowa City is so resilient, is because we’re such a connected community, and so we wanted to help connect people.”
This partially inspired the name of the event, Bright Future, Zbanek Hill said.
“Community action and collaboration is how you build a bright future,” Zbanek Hill said.
The event sought to not only strengthen the community by connecting people with others in Iowa City but also to strengthen people’s relationship with the public library by highlighting the many resources the library provides, many of which have been tailored to the specific needs of people in Iowa City.
“I think the thing that’s really exciting for people to understand about the modern library is that the modern library, and libraries in general, have always been a reaction to the communities that they’re serving,” Roche said.
However, President Donald Trump’s recent executive order to dismantle the Institute of Library and Museum Services threatens critical funding that allows the library to provide resources like its summer reading programs and to collect data to assess its community’s needs.
“That was one of the resources that funded the data collection that helps inform some of our decisions,” Roche said. “So, we’ll have to figure out how to continue that work without funding.”
In recent years, libraries have been the target of censorship laws and book bans, including Senate File 496, which required the removal of thousands of books from Iowa public schools, and Senate File 235, which removed obscenity exemptions from public libraries. As Roche explained, these laws seek to ban not only books but also important perspectives and experiences.
“Of course, we know that the reasons people want books censored are really problematic: anti-LGBTQ, wanting to erase or disappear history of marginalized people,” Roche said. “You know, at libraries, every viewpoint is represented here.”
Despite these laws targeting libraries, those who work in libraries, and people who rely on the important services provided by public libraries, Zbanek Hill and Roche believe it’s important to remain optimistic.
“There have been times in the last six weeks where naming this event ‘Bright Future’ felt like it was going to feel inappropriate or scary,” Roche said. “But what we settled on in our hearts is that the future’s always bright with libraries. Let us do our thing, let us continue to serve the public, let us shine, and the future is always bright. So, we still feel a lot of optimism for the future.”
This is the first year Bright Future is being held, but it serves to reflect the strength and optimism of the library and its community, which continue to serve Iowa City even facing hardship.
“Libraries thrive when communities come together,” Elsworth Carman, the director of Iowa City Public Library, wrote in an email to The Daily Iowan. “We’re proud to serve a community that shows up for its library.”