Libraries remain an important investment in our community

Andrew Carnegie is acknowl- edged as the father of the public library system in the United States, and rightly so since he gave much of his $350 million fortune to the establishment of libraries. And that was in a day — a century ago — when a million dollars was real money.

Carnegie’s fascination with and devotion to libraries is a central part of his life’s plan, which was said to be: spend the first third of your life becoming educated, the next third making as much money as you can and the final third giving away most of it to worthy causes.

Perhaps the value Carnegie placed on libraries seems quaint today, a holdover from an age when the common man didn’t own but a few books, including the family Bible. And if all libraries did today was lend books, their value to society would be less than it was in Carnegie’s day.

But while libraries continue to provide access to books whose value far exceeds the ability of most families’ budgets, today’s libraries do so very much more, and are arguably even more important than they were a century ago.

And so, while today’s economic realities make it difficult for anyone to support an increase — even a small increase — in local taxes, we urge support of the 1.8-mill levy that will appear on the Nov. 2 ballot for the support of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County.

Local libraries have been hit by a double whammy: an increase in usage, fueled in part by tighter family budgets, and a decrease in state financial support.

An on-going threat

This is not a temporary financial bump in the road that the library system can get past. It is an economic crisis that threatens the future of libraries as people have come to know them.

Library staff has been cut, hours have been reduced, and 19 sites have been reduced to 16.

Still library usage has grown as residents increasingly avail themselves of books, CDs and computer access. Computers are available for far more than recreational use; they are invaluable tools for job searching.

If the levy fails, five or six branches will have to be closed on short notice, and hours and services at all sites will be curtailed. Other cutbacks would follow as funding continues to fall behind operational costs.

We mentioned Andrew Carnegie and his belief in libraries as the places where the lives of people seeking knowledge could be changed. Carnegie gave the modern-day equivalent of billions of dollars to libraries. But he also did something else. Before he gave money to build one of the nearly 1,700 Carnegie libraries in the United States, he demanded a local commitment from the community toward the construction and maintenance of the library. A community’s investment was as important as his, and that need for community support is more important today than ever.

The levy that the library board has put on the ballot would cost the owner of an average property valued at $100,000 about $1 per week. We recognize that there are some people reading this who can honestly say that they cannot afford another dollar. There are others for whom finding another dollar might be difficult. But for most of us, the library levy involves only a recognition of what’s important to our families and our neighbors. We would submit that fully functioning, readily available libraries are a good personal investment and a good investment in the community at large.

We urge voters to vote yes on Issue 4, the 1.8-mill, five-year levy to support the public libraries of Youngstown and Mahoning County.