December...
December… a time when fun and festive things are supposed to happen! Yet, in Connecticut we keep hearing about State budget cuts, libraries cutting back, crooks stealing computers from a city library. What else could possible go wrong? But there is a glimmer of light – okay—maybe not with the State budget but, with libraries working together. As if that has never happened here in Connecticut! Governor Rell has asked for “regionalization” of services. Asking what that could possibly mean, I discovered it is what libraries have been doing in this state for years. SHARING!
The Connecticut libraries have shared and partnered with each other with big projects and small. We share books and media materials, storytelling hours and ideas, museum passes, and fund raising ideas just to name a few. Look at that wonderful project with the Southeastern Connecticut Community Foundation and the libraries in Groton, Lyme, Mystic, Stonington, and North Stonington.
One point our Governor and legislators need to understand is that our libraries are resourceful. We see a need and we try and fix it, help it. Libraries are doing more with less – less staff, less hours, less resources. And yet, we are doing more. More patrons are heading to our institutions. Some need help with resume writing, maybe some are looking for free entertainment, some are looking for a sense of community. I have to tell you that the gate count for the Mortensen Library at the University of Hartford had a 77,000 increase this past year. We are an academic institution and our community is pretty contained (for college students) so that said, our University community is coming to us in droves. The students have figured out the all that stuff on Google isn’t all that good and that they need us!
Our students aren’t much different than the patrons in the public libraries. Okay, they get graded on their work and it costs a ton of money to attend college but, that aside, patrons are patrons. Now, with iCONN being reduced $461,722 to $1,507,072, reQuest being reduced to $493,259, the complete loss of infoAnytime, and never mind the terrible reduction to the Connecticut Library Consortium of $84,389 all makes our job harder. So, whether we are working with a student, the unemployed, the child, the start-up business owner, or somebody who just wants a good book, our work is harder and yet we keep doing it! We do this because we love what we do and for whom we do it. The first time you put a book in a child’s hand, the first time you help a person trace a famous branch in their family tree, when you see the ah-ha moment in a student’s eyes – we know it is all worth it. It is never too late to contact your legislators – remind them of what libraries do and that our very foundation of our democratic society is based on the public library and access to information. The Governor can be contacted at Governor.Rell@ct.gov, Lieutenant Governor Fedele can be reached at LtGovernor.Fedele@ct.gov, and the OPM Secretary Genuario can be reached at Robert.Genuario@ct.gov. Do not hesitate to send an e-mail.
Then people tried to challenge a book-- and not even a good book at that. That is, when you discover what sort of stock librarians are made of. That night was terrible. The emotions were off the scale. The town had turned into a 3-ring circus with the TV cameras and the radio stations set up in the parking lot. It was not about the book or the horrible incident that took place-- it was about people, with what they thought were good intentions, trying to tell others what they could or could not read. Our First Amendment allows us to read freely. As I said that evening – nobody in that room has the right to tell me or anybody else what they can and cannot read. Only I will make that decision for me. Noam Chomsky said it best, “if we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it all”. How will this challenge end? We won’t know for awhile but, we are all hoping that the book will be on the shelf and people will be able to decide for themselves to read or not.
As for that glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel…….5 gently-used computers were given to the city library.
Dr. Randi Ashton-Pritting is Director of University Libraries at the University of Hartford. Contact her at pritting@hartford.edu.
