« West Paterson library's circulation way up | Main | FBI withdraws digital library's national security letter »

May 6, 2008

Borough needs local library

Letter to the editor Asbury Park Press may 6, 2008
As a professional writer, words are everything to me. And it was through my hometown library — the Eatontown Public Library — that I first learned to truly love words. Some of my earliest memories are of trips there with my mother, who treated the outings as sacred, thrilling events. That's what they became.

I remember the children's corner, outfitted with a table and chairs and low shelves that brimmed with classics I asked my mom to read to me over and over again, from "Green Eggs and Ham" to "The Little Airplane." I remember graduating to the young adult section, and then across the aisle, not far from the librarian's desk, to adult books, which I devoured quickly, wanting to be like my mother, who would check out four books at a time and manage to keep them all going at once.

It wasn't until high school, when I was researching a report, that I made my first foray into the Monmouth County Library. I found it too big and too intimidating and, while I eventually got used to its vastness and grew to appreciate it, it was never the same as my first library — small, yet brimming with literature, filled with a priceless, small-town intimacy and yet containing endless worlds.

When a friend told me recently that the Eatontown Public Library could soon close, I felt sadness and dread, even though I have not been in the place for at least a decade. I thought of how it touched my life and how it must have touched so many others, and how its purpose — to nurture, teach and foster love of words in a close-knit environment — would not be replaceable by that of the larger county library, even though that one, too, is necessary. How can my hometown not have room in its heart for both?

How can Eatontown have room for countless shopping malls and fast-food places — even a topless dance joint — but not for one single library? Please tell me we are smarter than that.

Beth Greenfield

NEW YORK

Posted by tumulty at May 6, 2008 9:48 AM

Comments

Post a comment