Toni Morrison's Lorain

This article reported that the author's request for a reading room at the Lorain Public Library was to be seriously considered. With the approval of the library board and the help of a grant from the Nord Family Foundation, the Toni Morrison Reading Room was created. Toni Morrison attended the dedication of the room on Jan. 22, 1995. For the detail of the history of the Reading Room, see here. This article was published on November 19, 1993, in the Morning Journal. 

LORAIN — The cash-strapped Lorain Public Library will try to meet the wish of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison by turning the main branch’s quiet room into a reading room, a spokeswoman said yesterday.

“The library doesn’t have the resources for a new reading room so we want to enhance our current quiet room,” said library spokeswoman Terri Frederick.

After the Swedish Academy announced Oct. 7 that Ms. Morrison would receive the Nobel Prize for literature, several community leaders began discussing how the city should pay tribute to the Lorain native. Ideas included putting her name on a building or a street.

When Ms. Morrison heard about those ideas, she contacted the Morning Journal and suggested a more simple tribute, one that would have more meaning to her.

She said she wanted the library to open a quiet and peaceful reading room with comfortable, upholstered chairs where people can read books away from the hubbub of other library activities.

“Libraries are busy places these days. They have a lot of outreach programs, films and story rooms. I’m not criticizing that. It’s good,” said Ms. Morrison. “But sometimes what it doesn’t have is silence and the absence of activity.”

The glass-enclosed quiet room at the library stocks current newspapers and magazines, and is closed off from the rest of the library.

The changes necessary for the new reading room are still being planned, Frederick said. The library’s board of trustees met last night to discuss the changes and how to meet Ms. Morrison’s wishes.

“We will set a budget and identify funding,” Frederick said. “The final piece will be to talk to Ms. Morrison and see if she is still comfortable with the plan.”

Ms. Morrison, the author of six novels, said she spent her formative years reading at the Lorain Public Library when it was located in the red brick building on 10th Street between Reid and Long avenues. The library is now at 6th Street and Reid Avenue.