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I adore the library. Love it, love it, love it. Always have. I like the weird dusty smell of the library. I like the Dewey Decimal system that allows me to find any book in any library unless it's been mis-shelved, in which case, it's gone forever. Even mis-shelving has its advantages because sometimes you'll find a book about the fine craft of Portuguese tile right next to that book about Katherine Hepburn. I love the way you can get all kinds of stuff from the library, not just books, but sheet music and videos and CDs and prints to hang on your wall and even DVDs. I love the way the library is all high tech now and I can browse the catalog online. I can ask for every single resource on ukulele playing that my library system provides, have them delivered to my local branch, take them home and have them for my own for three weeks, and then, take them back again. I liked the dingy old downtown library, full of transients reading the papers and surfing the web. I like the temporary central library with its acidy colors and its location right across the street from a bus stop so that when you've checked out 57 pounds of books, you can just cross the street and take the bus home. I like the new library in my neighborhood with its soaring atrium like feel, its impressive new computer center and its still inadequate selection of browsing books. I like the librarians and the way they have answers to your most obscure questions. I like the way there's a degree called "Library Science" as though there are a bunch of folks in lab coats concocting sophisticated ways of making it easier for people to read. I like the way the library staff isn't just floppy bow wearing ladies any more; they're Native American and 20ish gals with fuchsia hair and tattoos and that one guy with the long, long dreadlocks and the gorgeous British accent and the Italian born woman who is much too old for that leather miniskirt and how does she manage in those high heels all day anyway. I even like paying my overdue fines because, hey, with all the stuff the library has done for me, I can give them thirteen dollars and forty-two cents for the time I put that Bob Wills CD in with my own stuff and it didn't resurface for, like, three months.
What I'm saying is that the library, the library, the library, it's a damn fine thing.
So I was pretty bummed out when I found out yesterday that the library is going to be closed for a week due to budget constraints. It's the height of summer and I'm not commuting for the first time in years and the branch near my house JUST reopened after being closed for more than a year. I finally got my library back and it's being taken away. I asked the young man at the check out stand about it. He told me he was going to be sent home for a week without pay. Then I talked to the gentleman shelving books.
"What the hell?!" I asked him.
Well, the city is out of money. Or is it the state? Who can keep up with who's out of money in government and why? Here's what I know. The library is going to be closed because we can't pay to keep it open. That means a whole set of library employees are going to be having an unplanned vacation from being paid and a whole set of kids are not going to be able to get the next book in whatever series they're reading (all I can think of is Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys, and that's so out of date) and a whole bunch of unemployed people are not going to be able to send out resumes and make online job inquiries and I won't be able to get that instructional video on how to read music and transfer that knowledge to the finger board on my uke. Okay, I get that I'm pretty low on the ladder priority-wise for that list of activities, but what I'm saying is this: we're not going to be able to use the library.
The librarian asked me if I was in contact with my representatives. (He does not know me very well, does he?) So I asked him which ones? City? County? State? National? He suggested that library funding has been deteriorating all the way up to the national level for some time and that it wouldn't hurt to let them know, all the way in Washington DC, how bummed out I am about library closures. I went home and did a little fishing. I figure that my reps in DC have enough on their hands, what with the current administration and all, and that library access seems like a more local issue than, say, the missing weapons. So I wrote to my state reps and the guy who runs the committee on libraries for the city. I probably should send the mail to the county too, since there's a system of libraries that falls under the county government, but I don't know the state of that system just yet.
Depending on whom you ask, free libraries have been around since either 1787 or 1854. Regardless of when they were started, their goals were clear. They believed that a community with a public library was better off, intellectually, culturally, morally, and economically, than a community without one. Now, we're not going to turn in to a community without a library overnight. Still, by whittling away at public access to one of the most remarkable resources this nation has to offer, we're showing ourselves to be a people who don't think it's a priority for our citizens to have access to books. Where is our money going instead? If reading isn't a priority, what is? Libraries are on the front line of the war on civil liberties in the US right now. Homeland Security wants your reading records and they also don't want to tell you that they feel the need to see them. The government wants to deny funding to libraries that won't install blocking software on their Internet ready PCs. A closed library tells no tales, and it certainly keeps information out of the hands of its users.
Look, it's just a temporary closure, I know. I'm all up in arms about my library being out of circulation for a week. It's because I'm worried. I didn't see this coming. In my mind, one of the things that makes this nation great, and I'm not being dramatic here, I really feel this way, one of the things that makes the US my preferred home of choice, is the public library system. Maybe you think its faulty logic to conclude that a government that doesn't strive to keep the libraries open doesn't think that the intellectual improvement of the populace is a priority. But you know what? You're reading this. You could read this on the web at your public library. You could get books about the history of libraries and books about how government works from your public library. You could ask the librarian about where they get their funding from. And then while you're standing there, surrounded by people who are reading, you can decide for yourself how important libraries are to you.
After all, you know how I feel about the library already.
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Dear Pam,
Thank you for your e-mail regarding your concerns on library closures. I agree with you that our libraries provide an invaluable service to the citizenry and to the community, but hard financial times are upon us (link provided by Nerd's Eye View) and we must whether (sic) the storm. There are a number of vital services and programs that are being cut and the state as well as county and local governments are doing as much as we can to restore the funding for them. Believe me, we are trying to do all that we can.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me. I appreciate the comments and will keep your thoughts in mind.
Sincerely,
Frank Chopp
Speaker of the House
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