Libraries are dangerous places.
By merely passing through the doors, a visitor can quickly be infected with a malady called “curiosity” and, worse yet, be exposed to radical ideas, historical truths (and half-truths) and all manner of material dealing with such potentially insidious topics as religion, politics, crime, sex, science, sports, quilting and more.
Still, we continue to build libraries and to invite the public, including vulnerable children, to visit them and to venture deep into the inner sanctum, to peruse whatever topics are of interest.
What in the world is going on here?
Maybe they had it right back in the 14th century, as depicted in Umberto Eco’s 1983 novel “The Name of the Rose.” At the eye of this dense murder mystery is a secret book containing (if we can be so contemporary) politically incorrect ideas. The book is hidden away in a dark, labyrinthine library. Only a few souls who are unlikely to be damaged by exposure to the conflicting worlds of thought contained therein are allowed inside to, as Eco puts it, “taste the heady brew.”
In the 21st century, some people believe that libraries are obsolete. We have the Internet, Amazon, television. However, U.S. public library cardholders outnumber Amazon customers by almost 5 to 1, according to a study by the Online Computer Library Center.
Libraries, the study shows, circulate as many items every day as FedEx ships packages. In a recent year, 204 million sports tickets were sold in the U.S. In that same year, libraries recorded more than 1.1 billion visits.
Even as websites proliferate and as our lives grow busier and more frantic, 63 percent of respondents to a survey by the Marist College Institute for Public ap support increasing taxes for public library services in their community.
That percentage tallies with the results of a 2004 professional survey contracted for by the Gunnison County Public Libraries Board of Trustees. Sixty-seven percent of those surveyed would support increasing taxes to pay for a new library, and 84 percent were library card holders.
That’s good news, but it must be tempered with the realization that there are competing interests for tax dollars – school districts, recreation programs, highways, prisons and more.
Despite the competition, new libraries have been or are being built in many relatively small Colorado communities – Telluride, Durango, Cortez, Granby and Montrose, for example.
Signs are sprouting on vacant lots in towns like Paonia and Crawford proclaiming the “future site” of a new library.
In Gunnison, rancher Ray VanTuyl recently donated several acres of valuable property near the public schools for a new library. Our sign is being constructed. But there is a lot of work to be done. Gunnison city voters just approved a tax increase for a swimming pool, improvements to the hockey rink and a system of trails. Gunnison County has asked voters at least twice to approve a tax increase to build a new jail – and failed.
Statewide, the needs are growing for increased funding for higher education, health and human services, highways, K-12 education and numerous other tax-supported programs.
As voters are urged to approve more and more tax increases, some are asking about the return on their investment. Supporting education is easy for many. Voting for prisons is more difficult.
A study by the St. Louis Public Library found that for every dollar spent on libraries, the return on investment generally ranges from $2 to $10.
Libraries, one hopes, will never go out of favor, will fight off the hazards of censorship on the part of those who would limit access to certain kinds of thought, and will find increasing support among taxpayers in the far reaches of our state.
Everyone should be invited into libraries everywhere to, as Eco put it, “taste the heady brew.” But beware of the dangers that lurk in the pages, on the screens and digitized on the discs that you might encounter.
Larry K. Meredith (lkmgunnison@yahoo.com) is an administrator at Western State College in Gunnison and author of “This Cursed Valley” (Pearl Street Publishing, April 2003).
