What tax-supported institutions are ”free, local, with room to roam, they’re like parks with a brain, providing education brilliantly disguised as leisure, ideally on weekends, when most people have time for it?” Public libraries, of course. Susan Dominus portrays the Elmhurst Public Library in Queens, New York in her New York Times essay.
There, she finds an electrician attending a story hour with his 3-year-old son, a man listening to English lessons with earphones, a lonely man socializing now that his wife and child are living in India, teen girls checking out romance novels, and immigrant parents learning the words to “Eensy Weensy Spider” and “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” along with their children.
Public libraries have been the backbones of thousands of communities in the U.S. for decades but almost always receive the meager less than 1% of municipal budgets. Where’s the outrage?
YES! Thank you Dean. Our public library just announced drastic measures to deal with budget shortfalls. In one way we are fortunate: our system is funded largely through sales tax revenues. However, in times of economic troubles (like now!), that means that there’s much less $ for the library, while costs to operate the library are continually rising. We’re laying off 94 p/t employees, closing the main library on Sundays, and closing the branches 2 extra days per week. Very sad. Now’s the time for like-minded people to join their local Friends of the Library group, or get active in advocacy for libraries.
By: stellarwars on May 2, 2008
at 9:30 pm