Fight the Closing of Public Libraries

I have written before about the importance of libraries, but the topic is so crucial that I can’t resist writing about an article in the current (November 2011) issue of “The Progressive,” titled “Overdue Notice: Defend Our Libraries” and authored by Antonino D’Ambrosio. The author starts with a quote from Cicero: “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” The thrust of the article is the tremendous importance of libraries in allowing everyone access to the knowledge and pleasure provided by books, as well as to such practical assistance as use of computers and answers from librarians. In other words, libraries are an essential item in democracies. The free public library “is a wholly American invention advocating self-determination,” says the author, who then quotes Molly Raphael, president of the American Library Association, as stating that public libraries are “the most democratic of the institutions government has created.” But the author raises the alarm that “local governments across the United States…are slashing library budgets and closing libraries.” For example, New York City “recently closed fourteen branches, and 300 people lost their jobs.” A critical point: “These cuts will disproportionately punish poor and working class people.” One educator calls libraries “intellectual and cultural lifelines” for working people. And in this digital age, Raphael says, “Sixty-five percent of public libraries report that they are the only place in the community where there is free access to the Internet.” Libraries are also essential to democracies as gathering places. Losing them is “the disappearance of a town square, a free space open to all, regardless of race, class, or any other social barrier.” We must fight against the closing of libraries; they are too important to all of us, and to democracy.