Presidents’ Day gives us a moment to reflect on leadership — the courage, vision, and perseverance that shape a nation.
But there is a quieter origin story behind many of our country’s leaders.
They were readers first.
Did you know that Abraham Lincoln had less than one year of formal schooling? He didn’t attend a prestigious university. He didn’t have access to private tutors. What he had were books. He would walk miles just to borrow a single volume and read by candlelight, teaching himself law, history, and the principles that would later guide his presidency.
That is the power of a library. It turns curiosity into capability.
Public libraries have always been more than buildings filled with books. They are launchpads — for thinkers, for dreamers, for doers. They provide free and open access to the same ideas that shaped leaders like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt.
And that tradition continues today.
Right here in Galesburg, someone is checking out a biography that sparks ambition.
A student is researching a term paper that builds confidence.
An adult learner is exploring a new skill that opens doors.
A child is discovering that stories can stretch the imagination and their sense of what’s possible.
Leadership rarely begins with a title. It begins with access.
When a community invests in its library, it invests in the potential of every reader who walks through the door. The opportunity to learn, to grow, to question, and to imagine a better future is not reserved for a few — it belongs to everyone.
You don’t need to travel to a grand Presidential Library in Washington, D.C., or Hyde Park to encounter history and wisdom. Those same ideas are available on our shelves, in our digital collections, and in the programs that bring learning to life every day.
Presidents’ Day reminds us that leadership is built over time — page by page, idea by idea.
So today, open a book.
Encourage a child to explore a new subject.
Revisit a story that shaped you.
You never know where it might lead.
And that possibility, that quiet, powerful possibility, is what libraries are all about.
