Sabrina Mendez-Escobar was on TikTok last week and saw a creator talking about what some online referred to as “digital library cards” for the Obama Presidential Center.
The Forest Glen resident tried adding it on e-book and audiobook application Libby before even finishing the TikTok post, only to be greeted with an error message.
“Since it started getting on social media, we’re all probably trying to do this,” said Escobar, who turns 43 Saturday.
People around the country similarly tried to access what was erroneously referred to online as “free library cards.” At the same time, Chicagoans hunted for physical library cards with renderings of the Obama center.
However, the Chicago Public Library did not intend for people to register across state lines on Libby, Patrick Molloy, director of government and public affairs at the Chicago Public Library, wrote in an email to the Tribune. He also wrote there wasn’t actually a digital library card, and people were referring to a small collection of e-books and audiobooks.
Former President Barack Obama’s museum in Jackson Park opened June 19. Inside it is a branch of the Chicago Public Library featuring spaces for children and book collections reflecting the Obama family’s reading preferences.
On social media, posters from as far away as Maryland, North Carolina and Georgia said they tried to sign up for what they thought was the digital library card for the Obama center. Some said they were successful, while others reported error messages.
But access was never intended to go beyond visitors to the Obama center, Molloy said in the email.
“Through social media, access to the collection was shared beyond the intended on-site visitor model,” Molloy wrote. “(Chicago Public Library) is reevaluating the best way to sustain the collection in a way that is consistent with its original purpose.”
Molloy and other Chicago Public Library spokespeople did not respond to further questions about how many people unintentionally received the collection and what would happen to their access.
A spokesperson for the Obama Foundation referred questions to the Chicago Public Library.
The online listing includes several books by Barack Obama, a memoir by former first lady Michelle Obama and both fiction and nonfiction offerings from other authors, according to screenshots on social media.
While the Libby collection wasn’t a digital card, the presidential branch does offer physical Chicago Public Library cards. The design displays books leaning against a blue rendering of the Obama Center.
Escobar wanted one of the physical cards too. She said she learned about them while visiting the branch earlier this summer.
“When we went to the library, I was like, ‘Why is everybody making this line for the library card?’” Escobar said. “Then I realized it was a commemorative, physical version.”
She said the Chicago Public Library branch is “for the people” due to how accessible it is. Escobar also said she supports the center, as Obama was the first U.S. president she could vote for, and she appreciates a lot of his politics.
Last week, Escobar visited the Obama center’s library again. She was able to walk right up to the library’s desks and exchange her card for a new one with the Obama center branding.
“I appreciated how the Obama center library is a public library,” Escobar said. “I’m in education, so I’m always telling my students, ‘Support the library.’ I take my own daughter. So it was really cool to have that, and it’s something local to Chicago.”
