Libraries in Troubled Times

In England, a new “austerity” budget threatens to eliminate or drastically reduce many public services. One proposal has called for the elimination of a number of public libraries. Author Philip Pullman offers a rousing rebuttal to those who are short-sighted enough to apply market rules to judge the worthiness of public programs:

I love the public library service for what it did for me as a child and as a student and as an adult. I love it because its presence in a town or a city reminds us that there are things above profit, things that profit knows nothing about, things that have the power to baffle the greedy ghost of market fundamentalism, things that stand for civic decency and public respect for imagination and knowledge and the value of simple delight.

Well that’s in England. Surely, it wouldn’t happen here? It’s already happening. Texas has proposed reducing state library expenditures to $0 (following California’s lead).

Books, Moral Outrage | Tim | February 3, 2011 9:31 am

2 Comments

By Dr J, February 3, 2011 @ 2:46 pm

I’ve lived in Texas for most of the past 20 years (believe me, it hurts to write that), and I can honestly say that I was shocked to learn that the state even had a library budget to cut.
By Dani in NC, February 10, 2011 @ 9:57 am

My county in NC cut library hours several years ago to save money. In a more heartwarming story, one of the small towns in the next county pledged to raise $175,000 to keep their branch open another year. As of January, they had raised $211,000. It was nice to see the interviews on the local news with people talking about how much their library branch meant to them.