by Lynn Mandaville

Public libraries are living things.

They grow, evolve, and mature in response to their communities.

They must be fed (financially and with belief in their intrinsic value) to exist.

Their growth and development depend heavily on good parenting in the form of the library boards who govern them, and the trained library staffs that run then.

Just as with taking care of a growing child, or a parent in the throes of advancing age, a library requires diligent effort, loving patience, and attention to the knowledge about the stages of development or the ailing health of a community institution in order to survive.

Public libraries as living things are also complicated things.

They are chronically underfunded across the board.  Their funding in Michigan comes from many and varied sources, most of which cannot be predicted with regularity, some of which depend on political climates, some of which are unfair, and all of which are affected by complex state legislation that, in some cases, don’t make much sense at all.

The standards for staffing public libraries are subject to local finances and limited numbers of staff.  For example, a large public library will have finances sufficient to hire multiple degreed librarians to conduct the wide variety of jobs needed in a library, i.e., administrators, catalogers, collection developers, programming experts at adult, teen, and children’s levels, among many others.  A small, rural library, on the other hand, may be able to afford only one degreed librarian and a few part-time support, non-degreed staff to perform all of the above tasks.

Library boards of directors are lay people, either appointed or elected by the constituents they serve.  Most of these people don’t have specialized education in librarianship.  As in any governmental board, there will be those who are advocates of libraries and those who believe they are a luxury that is expendable.  There will be ultra-frugal members and “spendthrift” members and others along the spectrum between the extremes.  There will be conservative censors and liberal freethinkers.  There will be persons with their own, unique agendas to put forward.

In simple terms, boards are made up of people who have their own special gifts and quirks.  Some boards will get along splendidly, and some boards will exhibit intense dysfunction.

Because communities across any geographical area have different identities, their libraries reflect those communities.

In an area where horticulture is of particular interest, the local library may have special collections of resources to meet those needs, including seed libraries where seed exchanges occur.  In an area where there is a concentration of aspiring artists, the library might have resources that would aid in developing skills with metals or wood or more traditional forms of expression.  In a high-tech community you might find 3-D printers in addition to your standard computing fare.  You get the picture.

The things about libraries that are common to all communities are these:

·        Libraries increase property values wherever they exist.

·        Libraries provide valuable collections that promote literacy at all age levels and in varied languages where multi-lingual resources are needed.  (A good example of this would be in the Fennville area, where migrant farm workers take advantage of that library for learning English as a second language, or improving children’s abilities to perform in school while parents are earning their seasonal livings.)

·        Libraries even the playing field where it comes to access to books.  Not every family can afford to build a personal library from which to read to their children, so the library is invaluable in that respect.

·        Visual media are just as valid to lifelong learning as print media.  Films and documentaries, children’s learning videos, and audio books are all valuable to diverse learning styles and physical abilities or limitations, and libraries are ethically bound to provide equal leisure and educational opportunities to all their citizenry.

·        Libraries are community gathering places.

·        Libraries help to even the technological and digital divides that exist between wealthy and poor areas, cities with easy access to the Internet and rural areas where such access can be spotty and expensive.

·        Libraries assist persons searching for employment.

·        Libraries are non-judgmental and discreet about the needs of their clients, offering help in finding information about even the most personal and intimate aspects of their health and well-being while respecting clients’ rights to privacy.

I know these things because I managed a rural library for 29 years.  I know the many joys and the sometime overwhelming pitfalls of keeping such an institution vital, interesting, appealing, and critical to the community it serves.

I know that there are people whose lives would be horribly, adversely affected without the library.

I also know that there are detractors who, because they have not taken advantage of the services for which they pay, and which the state mandates be provided to them, take the attitude that because they don’t use them they shouldn’t pay for them.  (That’s an old excuse that never holds water.)

The truth is that libraries greatly enrich America.

Libraries are the last bastions of reliable information and guidance to reliable resources.

Libraries are the defenders of free speech and a free press, without regard to political bent, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, physical capability, or age.

Libraries place a high priority on literacy for all American citizens.

Libraries are the cornerstones on which American values are built.  They support education and an informed populace in a free society.

It is my opinion that any community that does not value its public library is a community that is intellectually unhealthy, and one that doesn’t fully understand the significant role the library plays in maintaining the guiding principles of American democracy.

So it is that I read with great sadness and dismay the comments about Dorr Township Library seeking additional millage for operations.

There seems to be a serious disconnect where the library and the community are concerned.

Whether this disconnect lies in the administration, the board, the township governance, or the people is of paramount importance to determine.

But at the core, the community needs to come to grips that state law mandates that, one way or another, every municipality in the state must provide library services for its citizens.  Whether they choose to do is with its own library, or to outsource it to neighboring libraries through contracts, is theirs to determine.

Regardless, they will have to pony up funding for it, so bickering and name-calling and aspersion-casting will solve nothing.

It’s time for clearer heads to prevail in Dorr.

It seems evident that there is not an effort being made to come to an understanding about what the community wants or needs.

It’s only my opinion, but maybe money would be better spent at this juncture to seriously study the wants and needs of the township with regard to their library, leaving out the politics and personal biases, and accounting for legal requirements and financial realities, instead of conducting election after election for the millage requirements to meet those nebulous wants and needs.

The library is not a baby you want to throw out with the bathwater.

It is a living thing that requires nurture and respect.

It is the job of Dorr’s responsible parents, the voters, to provide that nurture and respect so that the public library can regain the dignity it richly deserves.