This TED Talk features librarian Don Wasek, recorded live at TEDx UW LaCross 2018.

Hello, friends. I'm happy to see all of you here today. This is actually exactly what I say to the people who visit us at the La Crosse Public Library. And I say it because I mean it.

The children who come into our library are my friends

and that I care about their needs and their futures.

I want them to be happy and successful.

I hope that they'll find great books

or a movie that delights them

or the solution to a tricky problem.

Libraries in general have this wonderful reputation of really caring about our communities.

We put out mission statements and statements of purpose that say that we connect our community

to the broader world. We engage minds.

We create lifelong learners.

And these ideals are really important to us as libraries because we know the power they have to create a better world.

A more connected world, a more engaged and empathetic world.

Books have power, information has power,

and for the powerless in our communities,

being able to connect to that is even more important.

In 1995, Betty Hart and Todd Risley published a study

that found that working class families

and those being served by welfare

experience what we now

refer to as the 30 million word gap. Essentially, what they learned is that children in these families

...