Calif. city to shutter its libraries

by John Ritter
USA Today

December 26, 2004

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20041227/a_steinbeck27.art.htm

<snip>

SALINAS, Calif. — At John Steinbeck Library, third-grader Marilu Quiroz reads to her father, Rafael, though he doesn't understand English. At another table, Marilu's sister Guadalupe reads to their mother, Celina. She doesn't understand either.

What the Mexican immigrant parents do understand is that literacy in their adopted country's language is crucial to a brighter future for their three girls. It's why the Quirozes were so dismayed when they heard that the city plans to close the public libraries.

For such a drastic move — unprecedented in the USA, the American Library Association says — to blot the hometown of one of the 20th century's greatest literary figures, a writer who chronicled the fictional struggles of earlier immigrant generations, is a bitter pill here.

“I just think it's uncivilized,” says Julianne Hansen, 60, a retired teacher. “Everybody is so incensed. It's like closing down motherhood.” Without the library, says Guadalupe Quiroz, 12, “I wouldn't know that much right now. Tell them not to do it.”

City officials say they have no choice but to mothball the library's three branches to save $3 million a year and balance a deficit-ridden budget.

As more and more budget cuts inevitably trickle down under the current misadministration's mishandling of economic policy, we see what America really values, and doesn't. What's next on the chopping block?

Edited to add link! (oops)

DAMN! This is sad. But then again, just the thing for all those "beautiful minds" out there.

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20041227/a_steinbeck27.art.htm

This is horrid. Can't imagine American citizens would let this start happening to our country.

Can't imagine a world without good libraries. We really need help here.

Rightwingers will never miss them, but the rest of us surely will (those of us without the "beautiful minds)!

My city is opening 3 new branches in the next two years, with bond funds remaining to open yet 3 more.

This is heartbreaking, truly heartbreaking, and in Salinas, no less.

I know many will want to hear about this.

I'd be very, very grateful for a link that I could pass along.

There is so much symbolism in this I can hardly stand it.

our system just opened a brand new branch and did complete renovations on another during this past year. And they just broke ground on yet another new branch last month. I feel very fortunate to work for a system where this is possible, especially when I hear about terrible instances like this.

Patrons rave to us all the time about how much they love the library, how wonderful it is...we often tell them with a smile, "well, you paid for it!" I think if more people thought about how important their tax dollars were in providing the services they so dearly love (but often take for granted) all these insane tax cuts might not get so much blind support. But a lot of people just don't think when it comes to this kind of stuff. Either that, or they just don't care. It's sad either way.

(duh!)

and here it is again:

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20041227/a_steinbeck27.art.htm

although I can't find a link for this:

"When I read about the way in which library funds are
being cut and cut, I can only think that American
society has found one more way to destroy itself."
(Isaac Asimov, from his autobiography I Asimov)

The closure of public libraries in Salinas is a
disaster, especially for a city in California, a state
with the lowest reading scores in the nation.

Research shows that better public and school libraries
are related to better reading achievement. The reason
for this is obvious: Children become better readers
by reading more, and for many children, the library is
only place they have access to books. California has
the worst school libraries in the country, and
California’s public libraries rank near the bottom.

When California’s low reading scores were first
announced in 1992, it stimulated a rush to heavy
phonics instruction. But it didn’t work. California
fourth-graders’ performance on the most recent
national reading test was at the same dismal level as
it was in 1992.

There is a more reasonable and less expensive
solution: Improving, not destroying, public and school
libraries.

Stephen Krashen
Professor Emeritus
University of Southern California

I read that the orange co. town had enough non-book reading conservative tax cut yahoos living there that they passed a ballot measure to close the libraries and sell off the assets...

Maybe it wasn't successful; Fullerton's library is open today!

http://www.ci.fullerton.ca.us/library/

during his presidency in L.A. - and/or Orange Counties I remember 83 were shut down in one fell swoop.

My town had a city, not county, library, fully funded by the city, so it wouldn't have been affected by Reagan's closures. My memory of Reagan's presidency is one of survival; always concerned about whether I could make the rent or where the next meal was coming from.

At one point, I was desperately trying to find work. I picked up the paper at 6am, and found a new "help wanted" add. They were taking applications at 9:00 am. I showed up at 9:10. They turned me away because they'd already taken 75 applications.

For what? For a part-time minimum wage job as a kennel cleaner.

No wonder I don't remember the rest.

I honestly don't understand why people don't hold Republicans accountable for their economic record.

of libraries closed here in CA when Raygun was Pres, I remember going to book sales where they were selling off the excess books. They re-opened most of them during Clinton's term, sad here we go again with the closures. :-(

I had just saved a copy of an article from Commondreams called "Careful Not to Get Too Much Education...Or You Could Turn Liberal" and then I saw this. It just seemed to dovetail, somehow.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1228-32.htm

This stinks-stinks-stinks. Dark Ages, here we come.

I suspect they had no idea. This is devastating to me. I am a longtime library professional and a devoted Steinbeck fan.

This is killing me.

I was a library professional; a library tech in a school library for 8 years before I finished my teaching credential and moved into the classroom. If there were jobs for librarians, with some professional autonomy about library services, I would have finished my masters in library science and stayed in school libraries. I grew up supported by libraries, the only place I could find enough books to keep up with my appetite for reading.

That part of my state has been home to many of my favorites: Steinbeck,
R.L. Stevenson, who Steinbeck wrote about in How Edith McGillcuddy Met R.L.S., and Robinson Jeffers, to name a few. One of my favorite Jefferson poems, written in 1939, seems prophetic at this point:

Shine, Perishing Republic

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire

And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens,

I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.

Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence; and home to the
mother.

You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly

A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains:
shine, perishing republic.

But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening center; corruption

Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet there are left the mountains.

And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable master.

There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught – they say – God, when he walked on earth.

That is what people think. They hate high taxes, but love many government services. The politicans are pushing something for nothing.

The same goes for roads and other services. You want good, educated societes, then it is a group effort. The ME society fragments the community.

"Voters had a chance to save the libraries by approving three tax measures on the Nov. 2 ballot, including a half-cent hike in the sales tax and a bump in utility taxes for Salinas' 60 largest companies. Both failed to win the two-thirds vote state law requires."

Where did the citizens in this town think the money was coming from? There ain't no such thing as a free lunch, so what they voted on (not to support the libraries) is what they get -- no libraries.

Watch out fo' dem libril professahs! Dey might make you READ somethin' we don't approve of!

Where what they say is the opposite of what they mean, or what they do.

While decrying the "dumbing down" of public education, and taking over, threatening, punishing, and publicly attempting to "whip us into shape," "raise standards," etc., they have devalued anything that has to do with independent thought. They glorify the inept and the illiterate as "regular people," and demonize intellectual capacity.

Really, is there any area or issue we can examine at this point where we won't find the law of opposites working?

library 2 years ago...smack in the middle of one of the Reddest parts of the country (Wagoner, OK) and to my shame I haven't even been in it...I did often go to the "old" one (a Carnegie) but just "ain't got 'round' to checking out the new one. Well, that'll be a NY Resolution, I promise! (And I'll pick out a bunch of books from my many boxes full to donate)