Public Library Funding

As our Governer considers cutting public library funding to almost nothing I was motivated to write this letter. I have also sent copies to my state representative and senator. But first I prefaced my letter with phones calls to each. Maybe some of you will be motivated to do the same.

July 20, 2009


Governor Rendell,

I understand that the proposed budget before congress today entails some extensive cuts to public library funding. While I understand that during difficult financial times, such as those facing our nation today, cuts in funding are necessary. I don’t, however, believe that our political representatives are taking a long term view.

On Friday of last week I walked into the Quarryville Library to return some books. I noticed that every computer was in use at the time. Not by children or teens downloading music or playing games but adults. Most of them seemed to be working on resumes or looking at job hunting sites. I spoke recently to our librarian and asked if computer use was up. She told me that it was higher than ever before. She also said that in the month of June they had issued more library cards than ever. Nationally, a recent study shows that more Americans now have library cards than ever before, 68%. That same study indicated that in urban areas 73% of library card holders use their local library’s internet servers. In rural areas usage is up to 83%.

In our community, as in many small communities across the state of Pennsylvania, our public library is directly connected to our public schools. Our public schools rely on the library to provide after hours computer access for students who do not own computers or do not have access to computers after school hours. One of the proposed cost cutting ideas is to cut the hours the library is open. This seriously limits students’ abilities to use those library computers and other resources that the library provides. The library promotes early education programs, which will most certainly be cut which, will entail spending more money on Head Start and other programs through the public education system.

Home schooling families will be impacted greatly as well. Public libraries are an important resource for home schoolers. The access to the computers, the books, the reference section and even just the experience of going to the library creates a special feeling for many children.

Another way the libraries may be forced to cut back is in staffing. When you lay people off this does not save the government money. In actuality it costs us more. Do you really think those people go home and wait for another job? Of course not! They file for unemployment costing us even more. One recent interview that took place on the Today Show they indicated that as many as 1000 jobs could be at risk in the New York City Library system alone. I am left to wonder how cities like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia will fare.

After looking over the grant allotments for the last ten years to public libraries I noticed that the amount given out is basically the same. It seems to me that you have already made cuts by not substantially increasing the grants allowed in the state.

When you choose to make deep cuts to public services like our public libraries you show a limited ability to see the long term view. Education of our young people is the most valuable resource we have in our nation and yet we continually cut the budget of and burden future generations. It is short term thinking, perhaps so you can say “See I cut costs” or “Look, we prevented a tax increase” allowing you to be re-elected. Look down the road twenty, forty, sixty years and what do you see? I see my generation of Americans, left to the care of doctors, engineers, and others whose educations have been limited by budget cuts to schools and public libraries. I see generations of loss to our nation of authors, playwrights, movie producers and other artists whose potential will be unfulfilled because we chose to make cuts in the public services provided by our libraries. Of course you may choose to have the doctor or lawyer who almost had the best America has to offer. You may choose to drive on the bridge or road designed by the engineer that almost had the best. You may even choose that “almost the best” for your children and grandchildren.

For myself, my children and my grandchildren I believe that cutting library funding will have an unbelievable effect on generations to come. As you consider this proposed cut to our public libraries please note the following quotations from some of our greatest minds and probably public library card holders.

“Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library. A company of the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out of all civil countries, in a thousand years, have set in best order the results of their learning and wisdom. The men themselves were hid and inaccessible, solitary, impatient of interruption, fenced by etiquette; but the thought which they did not uncover to their bosom friend is here written out in transparent words to us, the strangers of another age.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Books," Society and Solitude

“There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.” ~Andrew Carnegie

“The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species. I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries." ~Carl Sagan, Cosmos


Respectfully,



Tracey Johnston
Quarryville, Pennsylvania