Your Public Library matters

[Stephen Fox]

A Baptist perspective

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/why-your-pub ... -cms-24784

[Haruo]

Good article, but what on earth is "library football"?

[KeithE]

[JE Pettibone]

[William Thornton]

I love my public liberry and am never without a few books. Right now I have "Big Chicken" (I'm near the poultry capital of the world, Gainesville, Ga), a Stephen King book impulse item off the large'print shelf, and the nonfiction account of the Essex whaling ship. My liberry has a pretty good local and Ga history room. A new addition included a vast room with dozens of computers, no interest to me but always a bunch of patrons using them.

But I'm at a loss to understand why my local liberry shouldn't be seen as a strictly local expense.

...and I've never been banned.

[KeithE]

[Dave Roberts]

[William Thornton]

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

..clairvoyance?

[Haruo]

[Lamar Wadsworth]

Speaking of libraries--if you're in GA, your library is probably in the Georgia Pines network. You can use your library card to check out books from any Pines library in the state, or you can put a hold on any book from any Pines library snd have it delivered to your local library for pickup. So, William, you can get both of my novels from www.gapines.org

[William Thornton]

If Pines had a rewards program I'd have all kinds of cruises and flights. Will check on ILL for your novels.

[Neil Heath]

Right now Macon, Ga. is in a budget battle from a variety of causes, so they've adopted an interim budget that cut out libraries, parks and rec, and other "outside agencies". So all the branch libraries but the main one are closed, and it will be when its reserves are depleted. I think some rec facilities may stay open another month until school starts. Public bus service is greatly reduced as well. And I think indigent care at the local hospitals is gone for now.

There has been a strong public reaction.

[Haruo]

Welcome to Guatemala. I'm going to try try to find out about the "variety of causes".

[Jim]

[James]

Public libraries, in most places, have a secondary impact. Friends of the Library, an adjunct to almost every public library system provides a source for cheap good books that people can keep.

I am a volunteer with the Newport News, VA friends. We are open three days a week from 10-2. We have hundreds of books on every subject and fiction in every genre but porn. No porn is our policy not the city's. It is the only regular social activity i have outside of church. I've seen the organization change the lives of the volunteers and the regulars who buy from us. We have a program where school teachers can come in pick out books for their class rooms at no cost. It is their only source for book the impoverished children can take for their own.

[Chris]

[Neil Heath]

Update on Macon, GA budget woes: the libraries have been closed for several weeks now. A new millage rate has been approved at last, with budget details still to be worked out. Libraries are funded for now, and are opening one branch at a time over the next few weeks until all are in operation again. Hoping for continued full funding in the new budget, but the amounts are still pending.

They are also funding public transit for now, as it became known that there were people using it to get to their dialysis treatments who would likely die without it because they had no other way to get there.

[Haruo]

If we can just figure out a way to make dialysis dependent on libraries, all will be well.

I am glad to hear some progress has been made.

The whole thing reminds me a bit of Guatemala, where my niece Sarah lives, a country without a post office due to budgetary woes. Guatemala is a poster child for privatization.