Our Libraries

I have a bookmark with a saying of Erasmus: "When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes."

My love of reading is such that could apply to me; I would seriously be in jeopardy of purchasing more books than I should afford. Fortunately, my city has a reasonable library system, and I don't have to.

It was actually better than reasonable a few years ago, before the recession. Seeing that the revenue was falling, and likely to fall farther, a ballot initiative was floated to make a separate, dedicated income stream for the city libraries based on property tax. It wasn't to be much, the estimates were $60-$70 for a median valued home. I for one know that in books alone I save far more than that each year; plus, with its computers, many city residents who cannot afford one of their own can search for information for school, look for work, even keep an email account they otherwise would not.

Unfortunately, many in the city either didn't know firsthand the value of the library, or think it worthwhile (perhaps because of misinformation like this), and the measures failed. Several of our libraries were closed, and hours at the remaining curtailed.

Sadly, yesterday I read in the paper that the sharing agreement with the county libraries for our residents to check out books there will be sharply curtailed. Not unreasonably so, since our residents don't contribute to their funding, it was extremely generous of them to allow us to check out books at their branches.

So it was with a little anxiety that I rushed to the library. I had requested an inter-library transfer of a book and had received confirmation that it had arrived. However, I wanted to get it in my hands before they changed their minds and took it back!

So, for now, I finally have a copy of "Econned" by Yves Smith to read (she of the blog Naked Capitalism), with the hopes that these transfers will continue for our beleaguered libraries, since I have a few more to request.

Hopefully, too, the residents of our city will change their minds and decide that they, like me, value our libraries much more, and perhaps we'll be able to bring them back.