When Congressman Raúl Grijalva was a child, libraries were one of the most important things in his life. He discovered newspapers, magazines and Gulliver’s Travels.
“It was a place where you could be someone else, experience something as a young kid that was beyond any comprehension of what you would be able to do yourself,” Grijalva said on the morning of April 18, in front of El Pueblo Library.
A group of librarians and library advocates stood behind him, just after National Library Week and in the wake of President Trump’s 2018 budget proposal, which would eliminate all federal funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The federal agency manages library grants nationwide, funding many library programs and services.
Trump’s proposed budget, released in March, would cut out 19 federal agencies, including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. These cuts add up to less than one percent of the federal budget.
On April 6, Grijalva secured 144 lawmakers’ signatures, across party lines, on a letter to Congress, urging against the cuts and requesting over $186 million in funding for library programs.
“It goes against what I believe is a great tradition in this nation—free and public libraries,” Grijalva said to a crowd of about 40 people. He reminded them that while the president can propose budget cuts, without the vote from Congress, they can’t pass.
The list of what Pima County libraries have accomplished with the help of federal funding is long. Standing with Grijalva, Pima County Public Library Director Amber Mathewson, brought up a few:
Over the last 3 years, Arizona has received more than $3.1 million for programs that include library services for underserved, rural and tribal communities. For 15 years, there’s been federal funding for the University of Arizona Library School’s Knowledge River Program, supporting future librarians committed to serving Latino and Native American communities.
Mathewson quotes writer Caitlin Moran in saying, “A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life raft and a festival.”
And a life raft may be one of the critical roles libraries play for low-income families today. According to the Pew Research Center, 27 percent of American adults don’t have home access to high-speed internet.
Therefore, libraries become a resource for the unemployed on a job hunt, students needing computer access or a safe place to be after school, seniors searching for community resources, and children learning to read.
“Libraries break down the barriers of age, ethnicity, culture, economic status, language and geography,” said El Pueblo librarian Anna Sanchez.
Libraries function as the community hub for neighborhoods, especially high-stress neighborhoods, providing programs and resources tailored to the needs of the community, Sanchez said. They improve the overall quality of life.
“Historically, public libraries have had a significant role in maintaining and supporting our free democratic society,” she said. “The public library is America’s great equalizer, providing everyone the same access to information and opportunities for success.”
Sunnyside Unified School Boardmember Eva Carrillo-Dong talked about when she was superintendent for the Pima Accommodation School District, and they opened a public library inside the Pima County Juvenile Detention Center.
Many of the kids’ reading skills were poor, but through library access, they became reinvigorated to learn.
“We saw an increase of students raising their hands to read, to answer questions,” Carrillo-Dong said. “It was amazing, and I knew that a large part of this was because if the public library that we had inside of the juvenile detention center.”
Also in her community, she sees kids flock to the Valencia Library when school gets out.
“Our libraries are the hub of the community,” she said. “It gives our students opportunities to find out what is happening around the world. Our students may not go five miles from their home, but our students get to the library and read about what’s happening 1,000 miles away from their home.”
Grijalva spoke again to reaffirm that he and others are going to work very hard to assure that 2018 federal library funding isn’t cut.
“There has to be opportunity for people regardless of age, color, zip code, income – to have access to information,” he said. “Libraries are about the future. They’re about learning, and they’re about giving stability to a community.”
This article appears in Apr 13-19, 2017.
I couldn’t agree more about the benefits of libraries.
When I was about 12, It was in a public library in a small rural town back east that I discovered a special National Geographic spread on Mexico. I was infatuated and wanted to visit at once. (I also became the star student in Spanish classes in high school.)
In fact, I could trace that first stirring of that curiosity to my now living close to the border and to spending as much time as I can in beautiful and welcoming Mexico.
To cut Federal funding to public libraries must not happen!
When I was young, I practically lived in the Woods branch library during the long, hot, boring summers here. Not to be too melodramatic, but I remain convinced to this day, that going on adventures in books in an air conditioned place surrounded by caring adults and fellow bookworms, saved my life. A few of my friends chose alternate adventures outside in the real world and are still paying for it today.
Funding cuts to libraries, the arts, and health care and research are a miniscule amount in the overall budget, but have a devastatingly huge impact in the lives of ordinary citizans, the ones repubs clearly care nothing about. But the cuts help keep the rabble uneducated and sick, two barriers to knowing what’s truly going on and doing something about it. These proposed cuts are not only ill advised and mean, but a means to the end of their bigger picture goal, and must be stoped. Why people continue to cut off their noses to spite their faces is truly beyond me.
Cutting libraries is a little like cutting Meals on Wheels–both programs are life-savers, not only for the nutrients they provide but for the community they engender as well. We have the money to fund all the war toys we want, so that OUR playground bully can exchange threats with other playground bullies on a world stage, but no money for libraries and Meals on Wheels. We can fund a passel of Tomahawks and “the mother of all bombs” to destroy other countries, but can’t fund the social infrastructure of our own. And then locally we are supposed to be happy to have Raytheon, who makes the war toys, donate to our pathetically underfunded public schools. Don’t get me wrong, as a public school advocate, I AM happy that they participate. I’m just sorry that our (and their) economic health depends on the destruction of resources worldwide. I just wish that their business contributed to REAL world security, instead of just their donations.
Rule number one for Fascists: keep the populace ignorant, control the newspapers, impoverish public schools and libraries.
Oh, I forgot to mention the importance that every fascist dictator rules with and utilizes fear.
My fellow library advocates might be interested in a plan for a privately funded national library endowment, which among other things would at least help cushion libraries against the stupidities of short-sighted politicians:
LibraryEndowment.org
Articles about our plan have appeared in the Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Library Journal and elsewhere.
Sadly, the Gates Foundation is actually winding down its Global Libraries initiative. We need to reverse this via a multi-donor endowment. The .0000000001 percent could create it with just a speck of a speck of the billionaires’ spare change.
Here is contact information for the Gates Foundation:
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/General-Information/Contact-Us
Educate Mr. Gates about our needs!
David Rothman
Davidrothman@pobox.com
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Pima County is funding the Pima County Public Library system to the tune of $29,000,000 a year which is very generous of the property tax owners of Pima County. The city of Tucson contributes not a dime to the running of the county libraries and the State Library federal funding function is just a fraction of money spent on public libraries in this country. Funding is not the problem here folks and I should know I worked for the Tucson Public Library – Pima County Public Library system for 25 years and this is not an argument ever used by the library when run by the City!