Are libraries unnecessary?

| Philadelphia Inquirer | 07/09/2010

Their budgets and staffs are shrinking, but people continue to rely on them.

By Marilyn Johnson

The United States is beginning an interesting experiment in democracy: We\’re cutting public library funds, shrinking our public and school libraries, and, in some places, closing them altogether. This has nothing to do with whether the libraries are any good, or whether their staff provides useful service to the community. The budget of the country\’s highest-circulating library, in Queens, N.Y. – named the best system in the United States last year by Library Journal – is due to shrink by a third. Los Angeles\’ libraries are being slashed, and, beginning this week, their doors will be locked two days a week. In Philadelphia, the mayor has threatened the latest in a series of library budget reductions. Such cuts and close calls are happening across the country. The rationale is that we won\’t miss a third of our librarians and libraries the way we\’d miss a third of our firefighters and firehouses. But I wonder.

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