History of Library Express and its Community

When you are taking a stroll in the Marketplace at Steamtown, you will come across a store that has wooden panels bordering it with big windows that have a display that tends to match the season. Along the wooden panel that is across the entrance, it reads: “Library Express.”

Library Express is no ordinary bookstore, it is also one of the libraries that is part of the Lackawanna County Library System. While you are at Library Express you are able to purchase a book like you would at a regular bookstore, but you are also able to borrow books as well just like you would do at a library. When you think of a bookstore, you rarely think of there being bookstores that are also a branch of a public library. That is what makes the Library Express Bookstore so unique.

A Brief History of the Lackawanna County Library Systems

The Lackawanna County Library System was founded in 1960 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. It has eleven member libraries that make up its system. These libraries are Lackawanna County Children’s Library, Albright Memorial Library, Valley Community Library, Nancy Kay Holmes Branch Library, Dalton Community Library, Abington Community Library, Taylor Community Library, Carbondale Public Library, Lackawanna County Bookmobile, North Pocono Public Library, and Library Express.

History of the Library Express Bookstore

Library Express was established in 2012 as a branch of the public library system in Scranton. More specifically, the bookstore’s Twitter page had announced on its first post on January 11, 2012, that Library Express was the newest branch of the Lackawanna County Library system and that it was also a bookstore.

Hey, all! We're the newest branch of the Lack. Cty Library System AND we're a bookstore. Follow us for info on events, books, & more!

— Library Express Bookstore (@LibraryExpress) January 11, 2012

Tweet made by Library Express Bookstore to announce the start of their bookstore

Throughout the last decade, Library Express has only progressed. Almost right away, Library Express had started holding different events. Authors, including local ones, would come into the bookstore and do readings and signings.

Their first local author to come in was Nancy McDonald who did a reading and signing of her book, If You Can Play Scranton, on January 28, 2012. Not only was McDonald a local to Scranton, but her book also had to do with Scranton’s history from 1871 to 2010. McDonald was not the only author who read a book of theirs that talked about Scranton’s history. Other books that were featured during author events were history about the local area or even memoirs.

Since 2017, Library Express has been doing monthly Open Mic Nights that have only gotten bigger since its very first event. Eventually, they started doing movie nights and hosting multiple different types of clubs, including book clubs. It is a place where people are meant to feel comfortable and feel like they are part of the community.

Some American bookstores are believed to be only about making money and not about the community. In Jack Perry’s Bookstores, Communist and Capitalist, he says, “No one in these places seems to love books, or even to like them, except as money makers” (Perry 109). Library Express is not this way though. They have a love for books and a love for their community. They want to help bring the community together by having so many events. Since Library Express is part of a public library it donates money to the library system. Also libraries are meant to help people learn more by loaning out books rather than just selling them.

Library Express decided to extend its target customers of people who shopped at the physical bookstore to online customers as well. Instead of just having people in the community come to the bookstore for the books that they want or need, they were finally able to purchase them online. On December 8, 2020, Library Express made it accessible for their customers to buy books through bookshop.org, which is a website that allows readers to connect with independent booksellers all over the world. This website helps small independent bookstores by financially supporting them. Bookshop.org is a good fit for Library Express considering they advertise themselves as wanting to help their community.

The reasoning for their progression towards being part of an online store as well as just a regular store people can go into is because of the COVID-19 pandemic that has changed the lives of so many people in Scranton and everyone else in the world as well. Like other public libraries in Pennsylvania, on March 16, 2020, Library Express had to close due to the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily.

Per a directive from the Office of Commonwealth Libraries, all public libraries in Pennsylvania will close from March 14th-March 29th. This includes the Albright Memorial Library, Nancy Kay Holmes Branch, Lackawanna County Children’s Library, Library Express, and Bookmobile.

— Library Express Bookstore (@LibraryExpress) March 16, 2020

Tweet made by Library Express about temporarily closing of bookstore

Even though in the tweet, they had said that public libraries in Pennsylvania would be closed from March 14, 2020, until March 29, 2020, it did not remain true. Especially for Library Express, they were unable to reopen for several months. While they were closed they also were not taking any donations so they could not help the community or the public library systems during this time.

It was on July 27, 2020, when Library Express had announced that they were officially opened once again. However, even with it being reopened they still were not accepting donations and they could not do any in-person events due to Covid. It was not until September 4, 2020, that they held their first event since they had reopened, but they did it online.

Even with things starting to go back to a new type of normal, COVID-19 still had an effect on the bookstore. Months after it had reopened they had to reclose it for a couple of days since a member of their staff had come in close contact with someone who had COVID. During the two days that they were closed, they did deep cleaning to make sure that when they re-open once again their customers as well as Library Express employees would be less likely to get sick with COVID.

Being part of a community has more than just where you live. It is also about the group of people who surround you and how you interact. When you are part of a community you can be expected to participate and help out. That is what is nice about independent bookstores. They care about their customers enough to make an effort to get to know them and try to help them with what they need. In Tim Cresswell’s book, Place, he defines what a place is in the very first chapter. Cresswell mentioned how “places must have some relationship to humans and the human capacity to produce and consume meaning” (Cresswell 7). Library Express is this type of place. They are a bookstore where customers are able to come in and buy the book of their choice, but they are also a library that will loan you a book that you have been looking for or need. Libraries are a place that helps the people in the community learn more about their community or anything else they possibly might want to learn. Library Express has the best of both worlds by being a library and a bookstore.

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