Trinkets Trump Libraries
Words have meaning, especially when you’re talking about libraries. So how about rewording an uptown paper of record poll, posted in response to news that the county is closing 12 libraries and cutting 148 jobs because of budget cuts.
The poll predictably asks: Would you be willing to pay higher taxes to keep libraries open?
Let’s change that to: Would you be willing to swap a multi-million-dollar Whitewater center and an uptown baseball stadium for 12 libraries?
Similarly, let’s change the oft-repeated lament that “the county doesn’t have enough money to keep the libraries open” to “the county, under the leadership of a Democrat-controlled board of commissioners, chose to spend millions on trinkets instead of libraries.”
It’s shameful that it’s come to this, largely because it was completely avoidable. In targeted cases, though, the closures of some libraries seem justified, perhaps even overdue. The Carmel branch that will be closing, for example, is literally right down the street from the South County Regional branch; ditto the Independence branch set to close and its distance from the Matthews branch. The Cornelius branch being shuttered is smack between the North County Regional and Davidson branches. The CheckIt Outlet, which is slated to close, practically overlaps the Main branch and ImaginOn on a map. And both of those facilities are a short drive from the Belmont branch that is closing.
Speaking of duplicative services, the library system has for a few years now been using automated checkout machines at several branches. Did the libraries where they’re being used experience any reduction in force when the machines came online, or was that factored into any of the jobs lost to budget cuts?
Maybe our $170,000-a-year library chief, Charles Brown, has an answer.
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