| Editorials & Commentary
The Philadelphia Inquirer -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Every country has hospitals, police and schools. But as Americans have understood since Benjamin Franklin gave our fledgling democracy its first publicly circulating book collection, only free countries have free libraries. Yet in today's faltering economy, where the fiscal health of government at every level seems in the grip of a bad flu, how can we continue to afford the right to know? As of yesterday, tens of thousands of librarians from around the United States have gathered in Philadelphia to award the year's best children's literature the Newbery and Caldecott medals. For the first time in a decade, we find library funding issues at the top of our agenda. We are meeting in the chill of a city where school libraries are being asked to function without professional staff - despite compelling evidence that the most reliable predictor of youngsters' elevated reading scores is a school librarian. In hard times, library usage always spikes. Today, public libraries in Philadelphia and around the country have been reporting record numbers of circulation, reference questions asked, and people attending library programs. In recent months, their libraries have been giving more and better service with the same or fewer resources. Everyone loves libraries. Whether it's for story hours, job information for the unemployed, Internet surfing, market research for starting a business, finding scholarships, travel planning, becoming a citizen, or simply curling up with a good novel, each library in America serves a wide range of needs in the information age. Back in the early 1990s, when we last absorbed the cooling down of an overheated economy, libraries across the United States faced drastic cuts in hours, staffing and collections. Then as now, these blows were often far deeper than those sustained even in the Great Depression. Why? Since the 1980s, when runaway housing prices and property taxes made tax caps as American as the Liberty Bell, we have quietly paid the price of being persuaded to divorce the taxes we pay from the services they provide. A decade ago, when so many who use libraries, from seniors to first-time job seekers, parents of young children to new immigrants, voiced their strong support for their libraries, many services that had been cut at first were soon restored for what amounted to pennies a year for each taxpayer. Indeed, until recently, library budgets, which included bringing the Internet to 95 percent of America's libraries, have continued to keep pace. Libraries are a public good. Like a lighthouse that benefits everyone in a community (well beyond the sailors and shipowners, since ships that don't sink bring goods to market that everyone needs), libraries enrich both the 65 percent of the public that regularly uses them each year and the rest of the community that benefits from what these library users have learned. What, then, are our options? The beauty of America's libraries is that they're distinctive institutions that meet the specific needs of the communities they serve. Just as there's no one book collection that meets the varied needs of Philadelphia, West Chester, or Bucks County, so there's no one neat solution to today's economic challenges. Some communities will try bond issues. Others will seek the right blend of book sales and corporate philanthropy. Still others will apply for the E-rate, the Internet service discounts for libraries and schools that telecommunications companies agreed to in the mid-'90s in exchange for regulatory relief. In Pennsylvania, unlike many other states that rely heavily on local taxes to finance libraries, the state has historically made a significant contribution. Fortunately, Philadelphia's library users and their counterparts around the country are committed to and love their libraries. We, as the library staff who serve them, are confident that given clear alternatives, they won't sit back and allow cuts to vital library services or personnel their communities need more than ever during these economically trying times. We trust they will demand that their libraries get their fair share of support. Knowing that librarians cannot live on love alone, they will insist that library workers be paid living, equitable wages. The current economic climate is challenging. But since more and more people are using what we offer more and more, we hope for no less than renewed public commitment and support, starting in Philadelphia, where America's libraries were born.
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