Books and Libraries
The Philadelphia Free Library had to stop buying books recently.Funding has been under assault for some time. In March 2003, the Pennsylvania Statehouse cut library aid by half. They lost $37 million dollars, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Library director David Belanger is still thinking about "cutting a little bit of everything." And this is hardly the only problem the library employees are facing. An eight-year old girl was raped and beaten in a restroom at a branch in the Old City area of Philadelphia recently. The library staff has been focusing on security concerns, and also dealing, like library staffs everywhere, with a lot of people who come simply because they want free internet access.
Being one of the people who uses the computers at the library a lot, I can't complain too much about that. But I have a half dozen books checked out right now (a couple of them good). I grew up in the library. First the Sweet Branch of the Salt Lake City Public Library, on 9th avenue. The employees there remember me before I remember me; I was listening to story-time there before I could walk. Later, when Salt Lake opened a brand-new downtown library, the third-largest and most modern library in the nation, I spent most of my free time there. I read, I used the computers, I purchased Neil Gaiman's comic books in the comic book story, I got coffee in the cafè, I met old friends who had transferred from the Sweet Branch to work in the new one, I met new friends, a couple of tricks ... it was awesome. When I got to Philadelphia, the first place I found was the Philadelphia Free Library. When I get to Charleston, the first place I go will be the Charleston library.
Things aren't looking up for the library. Pennsylvania used virtually it's entire rainy-day fund in the 2002-2003 fiscal year, leading to the cuts in 2003-04; they aren't likely to be reversed anytime soon. The 2004 budget overviewis has a whole lot of reminders of how bad the economy is. Maybe, compared to jobs and schools and roads and cops, the library isn't number one in the priority list for a responsible state governor. But whenever I move to a new city, the first place I go will always be the library.
