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February 13, 2009

It's a read it and weep idea: Measure would slash libraries

Courier-News Online
Editorial February 13, 2009

t's a sad state of affairs when lawmakers fail to grasp the vast importance of the state's public libraries, especially their role during times of financial duress.

With that thought in mind, fast-forward to Assembly bill A3753, sponsored by Assemblyman Vincent Prieto, D-Bergen, Hudson, which would cut financial support to these key places of learning by 50 percent. Prieto's motivation is the cost of funding libraries by municipalities at a moment when government budgets are under stress.

While acknowledging that the strain of ever-more limited government resources during a period of flagging tax revenues is large, libraries are not the place to pick up the slack. Local town halls would do a far greater service to residents by taking the ax first to their biggest area of spending: the overstuffed salaries and related benefits enjoyed by public workers, plus the overall number of employees themselves. Taken together, those expenses constitute in the neighborhood of 80 percent of municipal budgets.

Libraries, on the other hand, pay for themselves through the knowledge they impart and the better-trained populace they help to create. One could even argue they lift communities' bottom lines.

Outside of the public schools and public universities, there is no greater resource other than public libraries for the education and advancement of local residents. Libraries offer the opportunity to learn new skills, aid in obtaining an academic degree, the opportunity to do better in the work place, or the chance to land a whole new job. They are easy to get to for most everyone. Their services are either free or of nominal cost. And they are open long hours.

Besides all of those things, libraries offer enriching forms of cheap entertainment for people who can't afford a whole lot else.

New Jersey's libraries are already bowing under the weight of recession, some cutting hours, or staff, or materials, and sometimes all three. Prieto's alarmingly short-sighted measure could be the final dagger for some — and for patrons who need these services more than ever.

It has never been more appropriate to fund libraries to their fullest, instead of throwing them under the spending bus.

Posted by tumulty at February 13, 2009 2:41 PM

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