Support Your Local Libraries (Oxdown Gazette)

[chill_wind]

Support Your Local Library
By: earlofhuntingdon Tuesday June 23, 2009 5:11 pm



A friend and librarian in Ohio sent me an open letter about the proposed budget cuts from Democratic Governor Ted Strickland. At wits end to meet budget shortfalls, he plans to cut the state's contribution to its library systems 50%.

Mr. Strickland is moderately progressive (less so than Sen. Brown, much more so than the Sen. Voinovich). But beset with auto and manufacturing plant closures (GM, Ford and Delphi among them), a decaying infrastructure, and a Republican legislature that thinks anything but war spending is a luxury, he's amputating limbs. Among state governors, he won't be alone. Arnold Schwarzenegger in California is similarly wielding the scythe among state agencies' budgets.

Some seventy percent of county libraries in Ohio depend exclusively on this funding, and it's important for the rest. Gov. Strickland's draconian, unplanned for cuts will mean the widespread closure of libraries the counties hardest hit by un- and underemployment. It will mean that even the state's best public libraries, such as Northeast Ohio's Cuyahoga County, one of the nation's top ten public libraries, will lose its essential part-time staff - those who answer questions, check books, record, clean and stack 'em on shelves so that you can find them - and many of its full time staff.

Government employees like librarians and library staff are the backbones of many small towns. Their jobs keep some families on their own, and allow others a modest luxury - like paying a portion of the ever rising cost of state university tuition. Their medical benefits keep thousands whole. And many of them are union jobs, with high standards that better serve the public and help keep employers honest. Library staff have been at the forefront in maintaining our civil liberties in the age of Bush, the Patriot Act and the FBI's abuse of its power to search and seize.

Ohio residents- see contact information in the article

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/5929


Support yours, wherever you live. You know what they sometimes say-- As Ohio goes, so goes the Nation.

[alterfurz]

1. as we used to say back in the day...

"Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries."

[chill_wind]

2. And don't it always seem to go

that you don't know what you got 'til it's gone?

[tabbycat31]

3. aint that the truth

I don't have a very good local library, but an awesome county system. I had to pay $100 to join the county system, and it was well worth it.

Before I moved here, I had an awesome library that I did not have to pay $100/year for. I took it for granted.

[mainer]

4. Cities will support sports stadiums before libraries

It happened in San Diego. The voters gave a ton of money for a new stadium, and the libraries got shafted. It probably happens in a lot of other U.S. towns. That's where America's priorities seem to lie.