Saving Public Libraries, Backbone of Literacy and Local Democracy

I'm LIVE blogging from my local public library, which is celebrating National Library Week, from April 2 to 8, 2006. I'm using one of the library's dozen or so public computers (which aren't half-bad...Dell desktops in great condition, complete with headphones and printer connection).

Other users of the public computers include students from the local university, a middle-aged woman doing her tax return, several disabled persons, a nattily-attired entrepeneur starting up a new business, an obviously homeless man and several people looking for employment. In other words, the great American public.

When I climb onto my soapbox about the great good of public libraries, listeners' eyes often glaze-over and site readers click to juicer articles. But please...hear me out. Nationwide, funding for libraries is imperiled, and that is an unmitigated tragedy for our great democracy.

As I wrote almost a year ago at Closing Public Libraries: A Death Knell of Democracy, "The closure and severe limitation of public libraries is a travesty to a democratic society. And it's often a death knell of democracy. Not everyone can simply buy books, newspapers and magazines at will. Not everyone has internet access in their home or even school. And every child does not have a home in which to read and study.

Over the past few years, Bush Administration budget cuts have caused massive waves of cutbacks at libraries nationwide. Public libraries from Seattle, Denver and Honolulu to cities in California, Ohio, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Michigan and beyond, have suffered branch closures, staff terminations and curtailment of services and hours due to federal and state budget decisions."

At no charge, the Literacy Program at my local public library uses volunteer tutors (including yours truly) to help students of all ages and from any location in a wide range of subjects, from reading and writing to science and math. But a large portion of Literacy Program hours are incurred in teaching English skills to non- English speakers....reading, writing, conversation, even filling-out government forms and navigating citizenship requirements.

As the US acts to mercifully remove 11 million undocumented immigrants from the shadows and require them to learn English....as the Bush Administration savagely cuts education funding....as the economy harshens daily for middle-class Americans, as well as for those earning poverty-level wages....public libraries, with free and easy access to news, information, literacy resources, homework help, internet access, voter information and beyond, increase in their importance to maintaining the US as a free and democratic society.

As the venerated American Library Association declares, "...libraries are an essential public good and are fundamental institutions in democratic societies….intellectual freedom is a basic democratic privilege, and the ALA defends the right of library users to read, seek information and speak freely, as guaranteed by the First Amendment."

Celebrate National Library Week by visiting and supporting your local public library. For starters, here's a link to this site's Activist 101 page for Supporting Literacy and Public Libraries.
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Related Article -
-- Closing Public Libraries: Death Knell of Democracy
-- Bush Budget Plan for 2006-07 Cuts $4.3 Billion from Education, Ends or Cuts 46 Programs
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