I’m going to apologize if this post comes off as sounding very aggressive, but having just been through one of the most stressful experiences of my entire career in libraries:
if you want this, you need to be at your local community government meetings. you need to be talking to your representatives. you need to be out there Lobbying.
Just a few weeks ago, my library, me, my coworkers, we had to write letters, send emails, make phone calls, speak at council meetings, just to beg our aldermen to give us our usual funding. Which they didn’t even give to us last year. Losing last year’s funding forced us to cut staff, hours, and all of our databases. If we’d lost this year’s funding? two positions would have been gone and we would have likely had to close on Saturdays. On Saturdays. The day of the week most of y’all working M-F jobs actually have time to go to the fucking library.
And do you want to know how much money we were asking? We were asking for an increase of approximately 13 cents a person.
No one seems to understand how libraries are funded. It’s not just Free Stuff. It’s your tax dollars being paid back into your community. It’s crowdfunding. The highest cost anyone in my community pays for the library a year is approximately $250. Divide that up. That’s just $4 a week. That’s less than a coffee. It’s the equivalent of purchasing about 10 hardcover books a year. For that price, you could have access to every book that has ever been written, a place to go that’s not a bar, programs for kids, teens, and adults, educated staff that can help you find the answers to your questions, and so much more.
You want these late-night libraries? You want all this stuff? Start fighting for it. Start showing up. Start making phone calls. It’s not going to come out of thin air. Start fighting to erase the idea that taxes = evil. Start fighting to spread the understanding that taxes are what help us build a better society.
Make sure the people who represent you know that you want this. That this is where you want your tax dollars to go. That this is what you want them to support. That you are willing to see your tax bill go up a few more dollars for this.
Because otherwise? None of this is going to happen. Libraries are going to keep cutting their opening hours. Keep cutting staff. Keep cutting programs and databases and collections.
We NEED your support, and we need more than just a post on Tumblr. We need to see people show up and speak out.
