Shhh. A moment of silence for the libraries.
I love my libraries. Here in Portland, we’ve got one of the best used library systems in the country and I glad of it. I looked into the beautiful children’s library downtown the other day and remembered the countless hours I’d spent in my hometown library every day after school. I would eagerly search the shelves for new books that bore the red skull of Mystery or Science Fiction’s tell-tale blue atom. I reserved books so often, that I soon had my card number committed to memory. Every year I rocked the summer reading program. The librarians knew me by name. Some of them still do, but they don’t work there anymore. No one does. Because my library is in Ashland, Oregon and it closed yesterday.
In fact, all fifteen libraries of the Jackson County Library System in closed their doors for an indefinite time due to lack of funding. It was the largest public library closure in US history. More than a hundred county employees lost their jobs. How did all of this happen? The people voted.
Back in November, there was a levy on the ballot that would fund the libraries in case a federal timber subsidy didn’t get renewed. At election time, many people didn’t believe that the libraries would close. They thought the subsidy would be renewed. They thought there would be other funding sources. They voted the levy down. A few months later, Congress chose not to renew the subsidy and panic set in.
There’s been an incredible amount of community response since the word came down that the libraries were closing. Students have raised funds, many local citizens have pledged their support, and the libraries set up a blog to keep the people informed. Proposals ranging from charging user fees (which would work, were it not illegal under state law) to forming a smaller library system consisting only of the communities that approved the levy have been discussed in a multitude of meetings. The ALA even issued a statement which gained the issue some national media attention.
Currently, the communities are waiting. A similar levy to the one defeated in November will be on the May 15th ballot, but will require a double majority—a turnout of 50% of all registered voters, 50% of whom must approve the measure—to pass. (*PSST* college students from down South who are still registered in Jackson County: Vote by mail is awesome. Have someone send you your May 15 ballot and help save the libraries.)
I’m terribly saddened by these happenings. Sad for the children who won’t be able to build their own wonderful library memories, and sadder still for those who were already building them when their libraries were snatched away from them. Ten year old Aubyn Heglie may have put it best at the closing of my Ashland branch where elementary school students staged a sit-in (how cool is that?!): “It’s not just a sad day for us, it’s a sad day for the whole country.”
The moral of this story from 300 miles to the south?
If you ignore your libraries, they just might disappear.
Get well soon, libraries. Please.
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If the people do not want libraries, you cannot force them to have them. I feel sorry for their priorities, but welcome to America in the 21st century, an empire that is well on its way down. I think it will be better to let this rotten corpse collapse from its disgusting weight than to complain about it. Just get out of the way. Let it rot. Then, rebuild.
You know it’s true.
The feeling that I get in general isn’t that people don’t want libraries, it’s that they take them for granted. I’ve talked to many people who would have supported the funding if they had actually believed that libraries would close.