Libraries-Who needs them!!

What a stupid thing to say isn't it?  Of course we still need libraries even in this technology-crowded world.  In these times you can get books online or you can download them to one of the many digital books that are now on the market.  I have to admit that I have a Sony Reader and I love it but there is nothing like holding a real book in your hand.  I still have many of the "old-fashioned" type books.  You can now even get newspapers downloaded on to these things.  But what a lot of people who can afford these luxuries don't remember is that there are a lot of people still in this world who can't afford one of these gadgets.  Hell, they can't even afford a newspaper subscription.  There are also the people who come to get the latest DVD's and CD's.  People also go there just to read magazines and newspapers and to socialize.  This is also a place to do research using the genealogy room which holds a lot of historic books and papers.  Then there are the people who can't afford a computer but yet they want to surf the 'net so they go to the library. So just by reading this you see how much the public still relies on the public library system which right now seems to be in a lot of financial trouble.

Here in Ohio as in many other states they have cut funding to libraries.  In the town where I live they are trying to get an emergency levy put on the May ballot so they can return to their normal business hours amongst other things.  They use to be open on Fridays but since the funding was cut they had to close on that day.  They also had to cut staff because of this.  When certain city council members heard of this emergency levy one of them actually blamed the library for getting themselves into this financial mess.  HELLO!!! if the person who made this idiot comment would pay attention to the news they would know that funding that kept the library going had been CUT BY THE STATE.  It was not the library's fault.  Geesh!!! Of course, I don't take into consideration that maybe this person can't read or doesn't read.  Maybe he didn't get the text message over his iPhone about it.  Or maybe he just doesn't care about the library since he doesn't use it.   Well sir, there are a lot of people who want to see the library return to full running mode.  My sister and I are just two of those people.

My sister Michele worked for 31 years at our local library (she just retired this last year) and she feels that she got out of there in the knick of time.  She misses her co-workers there because they were all great friends.  They were almost like family.  Thanks to the cuts they could not replace her which makes it hard on the remaining staff in the department where she worked so faithfully all of those years.

I hope that the level-headed public speaks up for the libraries.  Our future leaders of companies and of this country need the public library system to keep going.  If you haven't been to the library for awhile go one Saturday afternoon and see all of the people who still need it and who still want it around.