Library Funding

A big issue here in Oregon City is library funding. Libraries are non-essential services. They're not like police or fire services. They're not like water, sewer, or street maintenance. They're not even like health or building inspections. Libraries are pretty much on the bottom tier for funding even in the best of situations.

Last year they put an initiative on the ballot to provide funding specifically for the library. It's one of those things that politicians want to side-step. They don't want to stand up and say they're cutting funds from the police in order to keep the library open. And they don't want to (and in Oregon they can't) raise taxes to fund the library. It's one of those things that they push off on the voters. And often, voters will rise-up and say, "We're not uneducated yolkels. We can read, and we want a library!"

The problem is that this time it failed. The voters of Oregon City said "no" to paying extra to fund the library.

How could it be, the library people wondered. Circulation is up. And we've always used circulation numbers to justify our existence.

Well, the problem is the library -- and I'm not just talking the Oregon City library, but the whole institution of community libraries -- has grown to worship circulation numbers as if their only mission was to raise circulation.

So let's think about this. If you wanted to raise circulation, what would you do? You'd make decisions on what to buy based not on it's merits, but on how well it'll turn. Thus an important educational reference book is not what you'd buy. You'd buy Top 100 music CD's, the latest blockbuster DVD releases, and trashy paperbacks that are doing well on the NY Times Bestsellers List. Screw educational or reference value. We need circulation!

Aside from obvious decline in the quality of library services, this brings up another question: Should we be subsidizing our libraries' efforts to compete with private businesses? Does not the availability of free, taxpayer subsidized DVD rentals not harm the local video store more than a new WalMart? Should we, the taxpayers, be subsidizing kids who don't have high-speed Internet connections, but still want to steal copyrighted music?

My answer is "NO!"

I don't like paying taxes so some cheapskates can get pop-culture crap for free. I want the tax money that goes to the library to help build a real library collection. The library should be a place to go when you're doing serious research, not someplace to go because you're too cheap to go to Blockbuster for a movie to watch tonight. The bookshelves should have a better collection than the paperback rack at Safeway.

Would circulation go down? You bet it would. But so what? Who was the idiot that thought up the idea that the way to measure a library's success was to look at it's circulation figures?

When libraries get back to their core mission, I'll advocate more money for them if they still need it. But I will advocate against giving them anymore money to compete with pop culture purveyors. Get rid of the music CD's. Get rid of the DVD's. Get rid of the trashy paperbacks. And find someone who can buy a book based on it's contribution to society rather than on it's potential to circulate. I'd rather have no library than a library that's focused on nothing but increasing their circulation numbers.

That's how I see things.