Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 10, 1993 TAG: 9305100283
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Imagine, too, the cries of outrage if government budget-makers zapped economic-development programs.
Yet proposals for deep cutbacks in public-education and economic-development programs have become fairly commonplace in recent years. It's just that they haven't been widely recognized as such because the target has been public libraries - institutions still considered in some backward quarters to be mere niceties.
As a result of cutbacks in government funding, most of this area's public libraries - in Roanoke city, in Roanoke, Botetourt, Bedford, Montgomery and Floyd counties - are now in a financial squeeze.
To make ends meet, it was reported last week, the city's main downtown library may eliminate Sunday hours. Some libraries in other area jurisdictions have eliminated weekend hours altogether.
Bedford County has reduced its bookmobile service from five days a week to one. Virtually all area libraries have reduced purchases of new books and materials. Many are forgoing development or expansion of computerized data bases.
No weekend hours? That may be the only time when students, elementary through college, can get to the library for research on learning projects. It may be the only time when working adults can get there for self-assigned continuing-education projects, or simply to undertake the learning they want and need that enables them to make informed decisions on public issues.
Parking the bookmobiles? That further isolates many citizens who live in rural areas, by denying them access to new information and ideas. It also undermines efforts to end illiteracy. Meanwhile, many citizens in this area remain unemployable - because they can't read.
The information explosion is here. When libraries are forced to scuttle purchases of new books, materials and up-to-date data bases, it is to deny a central fact of life today. It is to turn library buildings into warehouses of stockpiled pulp.
The American Library Association has launched a nationwide campaign to try to reverse the systematic draining of public funds for libraries. This effort focuses on individuals' written testimonials as to the place of libraries in their personal lives.
That's all well and good, and we have nothing against libraries' being warm and fuzzy places. But such hug-a-library campaigns capture only a portion of the point, and not necessarily the most persuasive portion at that.
An information explosion is needed inside the minds of those who control the public purse-strings. They need to recognize that these facilities are not simply conveniences for people who want to borrow the latest best seller, rent an aerobics video or peruse People magazine.
Libraries are also vital holdings in a community's quality-of-life portfolio. They are major resource centers for public education. They are - or can be - strategic components in economic-development plans. Access to a first-rate library can be a keystone for economic success.
Support for public libraries, in other words, makes dollars and sense.
by CNB