Library Board of Trustees Agenda and Packet 2010 08 12

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Public libraries: We lose them at our peril By Marilyn Johnson For the Los Angeles Times The United. States is begin- ning an interesting experi- ment in democracy: We're cutting public library funds, shrinking our public and school libraries, and in some places, shutting them alto- gether; These actions have nothing to do with whether the librar- ies are any good or whether the staff provides useful•sery ice to the community. This country's largest circulating library, in Queens, N.Y., was named the best system in the United States last year by Li- brary Journal. Its budget is due to shrink by a third. Los Angeles libraries are being slashed, and beginning this week, the doors will be lock- ed two days a week and at least 100 jobs cut. Such cuts and close calls are happening across the country. We won't miss a third of our librarians and branch libraries the way we'd miss a third of our fire- fighters and firehouses, the rationale goes but I won der. I've spent four years follow- ing librarians as they deal with the tremendous increase in information and the many ways we receive it..They've been adapting asdapably as any profession, managing our public computers and serving growing numbers of patrons, but it seems that their work has been all but invisible to those in power But if you visit public librar- ies, you will see an essential service in action, as librarians help people who don't have other ways to get online, can't... get the answers they urgently need, or simply need a safe place to bring their children. I've stood in the parking lot of the Topeka and Shawnee County library in Kansas on a Sunday morning and watched families pour through doors and head in all directions to do homework or genealogical research, attend computer classes, read the newspapers, I've stood out- side New York City libraries with other self employed peo- ple, waiting for the doors to open and give us access to the computers and a warm and affordable place to work. I've met librarians who serve as interpreters and guides to communities of cancer survi- vors, Polish speaking citizens, teenage filmmakers, veterans. The people who welcome us to the .library are idealists, who believe that accurate in- formation leads to good deci- sions and that exposure to the intellectual riches of civiliza- tion leads to a better world.. The next Abraham Lincoln could be sitting in their li- brary, teaching himself all he needs to know to save the country. While they help us get online, employed and in- formed, librarians don't try to sell us anything. Nor do they turn around and broadcast our problems, send us spam or keep a record of our inter- ests and needs, because no matter how savvy this profes- sion is at navigating the on- line worldx it clings to that old- fashioned value, privacy. (A profession dedicated to Privacy in charge of our pub lic computers? That's bril= limit.) They represent the best civic value out there, an army of resourceful workers that can help us compete in the world. But instead of putting such conscientious, economical and service- oriented profes- sionals to work helping us, we're handing them pink slips. The school libraries and public libraries in which we've invested decades and even centuries of resources will disappear unless we fight for them. The communities that treasure and support their libraries will have an un- deniable competitive advan- tage. Those that don't will watch in envy as the Darien Library in Connecticut hosts networking breakfasts for its out-of-work patrons, and the tiny Gilpin County Public Li- brary in Colorado beckons pa- trons with a sign that prom- ises "Free coffee, Internet, notary, phone, smiles, rest- rooms.and ideas." Those in cities that haven't preserved their libraries, those less fortunate and baf- fled by technology, and our children will be the first to suffer. But sooner or later, we'll all feel the loss as one of the most effective levelers of privilege and avenues of reinvention one of the great engines of democracy begins to disappear. Marilyn Johnson is the au- thor of most recently, "This Book Is Overdue!" L 0