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Dear Mr. President

white-house

I thought you all might like to read the letter I mailed to President Obama yesterday

Dear Mr. President,

Congratulations on your fabulous address to the joint session of Congress last evening. I thought your remarks were eloquent, heartfelt and truthful. I am hopeful that your positions on health care and the economy will bring about the change our country needs.

One particular statement that you made has prompted me to write this letter. You said that Ty’Sheoma Bethea, the young girl from Dillon, South Carolina, went to the public library and typed a letter to Congress. I think that it’s admirable that this young girl took the time to do that but what makes me truly proud is that she used the resources of the public library to do it.

Public libraries are so important to the citizens of this country. They are a critical part of the communities they serve not only for books, newspapers and magazines but for movies and free Internet access and computer usage. The librarians who work there offer programs to help people write resumes and find jobs, they proctor exams for people taking correspondence courses, and they direct people to the answers they seek and the resources they need.

And yet, when money becomes tight, public libraries are often the first institutions to face budget cuts. For the first time in my 15 years as a public library director I am facing budget cuts that will force me to layoff employees. I am being asked to reduce the hours the library is open and some members of the finance committee have even suggested that the library be closed completely. Where will a young girl like Ty’Sheoma Bethea go should that happen?

I know that you believe in the importance of education, Mr. President. And I know you understand that education doesn’t end when someone graduates from high school or college or graduate school. I fervently hope that you also know that the public library is the only place that all Americans can go to educate themselves for a lifetime. We serve the elderly and we serve students. We provide curriculum for home schoolers and a warm place to spend the day for those who are cold. We are here for everyone and for a lifetime of learning. We’d like to keep it that way.

Thank you for your time.

Yours truly,

Me

This Post Has 61 Comments

  1. Well said! I was truly inspired and felt a new sense of hope while listening to President Obama’s speech. Your letter does a great job to point out a lot of very important facts about public libraries. Kudos to you for writing and sending it. More than 13 years ago I wrote a letter to President Clinton thanking him for certain economic policies that his administration instituted that allowed my husband and I to purchase our first home, feel financially comfortable to start a family and begin to realize the American Dream. I got a wonderful letter back and put it in my daughter’s “memory box” where we keep keepsakes and all kinds of good stuff!

  2. That’s a great letter Carole! We need our libraries even more during the tough times. Usage has gone up in Utah and we haven’t been as badly hit as other places (yet).

  3. As a library employee, I have noticed a large increase in traffic lately. I could not agree more with your letter! Oddly enough I was feeling very cocky in my job security due to our increased patron volume. We are fortunate enough to have a strong budget and a very supportive board and community.
    Good luck with your rough road.

  4. Great job! We should all be writing letters to the President and our congress-people. And didn’t you love that girl from S. Carolina?!

  5. Great letter Carole – I am beginning to use the public library lately more than I have since my children were young. I have been there twice this month. I still love to buy books, but I have to cut back on spending, but not on reading,

  6. That is a wonderful letter. Of course, you caught me in a week where I’ve been seething locally because our NFL team, the Vikings, is pushing the state government for funds to help them build a new stadium. Umm…if our funds are going to limited, what’s more important? A vibrant library system, or a new stadium for a bunch of overpaid, spoiled, out of touch with reality athletes?

  7. Nice letter, Carole. Steve printed the speech and I’m almost done reading it. Haven’t gotten to the part about the little girl yet. 🙂

  8. Very eloquent, Carole. I’m sorry you’re having to face laying off employees. That has to be a very hard decision to have to make. As for closing the library completely, that person does not seem to be thinking about the ramifications of such an action. We need our libraries now more than ever. Personally, I have suspended my Audible monthly subscription and am utilizing cw/mars (the digital library available in Massachusetts) quite a bit more.

  9. Great letter! Laying off people must be one of the hardest things to have to do. We are facing the possible closing of my daughter’s elementary school because of budget cuts. This is certainly a sad time even with the hope given by the President’s speech.

  10. Huzzah! Very well said. The library was the coolest thing ever when I was a kid (am now 30), and not just because those were the days before Teh Internetz. The library was a portal into innumerable worlds, and I’ve had a library card since the day I was old enough to apply.

  11. Well said. It would sadden me deeply if we lost our public libraries. When I moved away from here it was truly the one thing I missed most.

  12. That’s a good letter. I’ve read a lot about how library usage is increasing massively as the economy crunches – so it’s particularly bad that libraries are on the chopping block. 🙁

  13. Bravo! you should send a copy to ALA so that people can use your letter to start/continue/revitalize their own letter writing campaigns. Maybe ALDirect will link to you?

  14. I have 3 library cards in my wallet right now: my hometown, my current home and the Boston PL. I love the library and am slowly convincing PC to love it too.

    I think kids need the library– it was a haven to me as a child. The head librarian ‘knew’ when I was past the childrens’ section and onto young adult. She recommended tough books that challenged me and created a love for the written word. I remember having to ‘renew’ Les Miserables 4 times over the summer so I could finish it. It’s still a favorite book. 🙂

  15. That’s a great letter. I use my local library all the time and can’t imagine them not being around. Layoffs are so hard. I don’t envy the decisions you’ll have to make.

  16. Fabulous letter! I know that some of my best childhood memories include going to the library during the summer and going to story time. I was a big reader and loved the summer reading program.
    I think that the library becomes a shelter for some children also. I couldn’t help but notice one day when I was in the library and the power was knocked out temporarily from a storm that two children came in soaking wet to sit in the dark library. When I asked the librarian, she told me that they stay alone after school and if there is a storm, they get scared and walk across to the library where they feel safer. She said that she gets alot of kids like that and ones in the summer who come in b/c they don’t have air conditioning at home. She also commented that those are some of her most well behaved patrons.

  17. Well done! I think it’s a sign of how far off track we’ve gotten as a nation that people see our public libraries as something that can be so quickly cut for the sake of a community’s buget. It’s a sad day when the people in power forget how truly important the libraries are.

  18. Great letter! I love libraries; I spent many happy hours in them as a child and I am a member of three libraries in my area. You do a good thing and I hope you are allowed to continue doing it.

  19. Wonderfully well put letter, I don’t think it could be said better. I enjoyed my time at the public library as a kid. I loved taking out new books and learning more and more.

    As an adult I’ve stopped going as much, but after our trip to Maine two years ago and being pretty disconnected from internets, I found the Machias Public Library to be an incredible place to visit and rediscovered a love of going to the library. I got to see how their library really acted as a community location for those who couldn’t afford computers or the spotty internet service.

    If I end up getting a pink slip before this year is out, I already determined to go back to school to become a librarian. It’s one of the few ways I see being able to encourage a love of learning and continue to bring technology to all.

    Great letter! I hope you get a response and will be sharing it.

  20. Thank you. Thank you. As a recent MLA grad, I have found this to be a very difficult time to be looking for employment with a public library. I’m determined to do it though. I will have to send a letter of my own.

  21. I have to delurk here to add my AMEN. I think it is so shortsighted to cut the budgets of libraries (and that goes for many other public services) at this time when they are more needed than usual.

  22. I too love our local library. It’s a small quaint place made bigger by the fact that we can request books and other materials from all over central ma. Love that! Especially since it doesn’t have a very large selection of knitting books! Great letter, would love to hear if you get a response.

  23. Beautifully written, Carole! I’m sorry you have to lay off staff. That just sucks. I visit my local branch of the Boston Public Library every week and the staff seem pretty strapped to meet the schedule and patrons’ needs.

    Libraries are crucial to kids’ education. You should see the large numbers of immigrant families who visit our local library to check out books. There are also ESL languages at the library and they match people up with conversation partners.

    Thanks so much for writing about this! Kathy

  24. An excellent letter! We should all use this letter as our example and write our senators and representatives.

  25. May I use this to rebut the next cheapskate who makes a presentation to my town’s meeting about how to cut back on “waste”? (Every town has a cheapskate-in-chief and several cheapskates-in-waiting. I do not know why, but I know it is true.)

  26. So very well said…I love the letter…

    I will be going before our City Council on March 11th – because they want to cut our library budget…and I can’t stand for that to happen…

  27. Bravo. They closed our local library last year. We used to go there 1-2/week. We’re trying to get it re-opened but are facing the same political shortsightedness you mention.

  28. Hello Carole, I am moved by your letter and hope that it will get recognition. I for many years was on the volunteer board of the Friends of the Library in my town and support them still. My son who is in the military spent many hours at the library as a child as we could not buy him all the books he wanted to read. Now that he is a parent, he and his wife spend hours reading to their not quite two year old daughter and they plan to introduce her to their local library when she is a bit older (she was a preemie so they limit her time with other children at this time for health reasons). Thank you for your commitment to all who continue to use our libraries. Kathy

  29. You are SO right. When I was investigating retirement sites, an active, modern library, well supported by the community was one of the criteria.

  30. Well said! Clever of you to piggyback off the fact that the young student used the library.

    I was disappointed that President Obama did not hit parental responsibility harder than the brief mention when discussing education. I hope we continue to hear him discuss the role of the family in relationship to the decline of student achievement.

    It was an inspiring evening, eh?

  31. Hear, hear! (You know how I feel about libraries. Oh, and I sit on the county finance committee, where I fight for the library.)

  32. I love our library, I am a card carrying Friend of the Library and everything. So I feel qualified to say, with the appropriate amount of aggravation: 834 kabillion dollars to stimulate the economy and public libraries are facing cut backs? What’s wrong with this picture?

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