My time spent as a reading buddy volunteer to kids who were having a hard time reading was one of the best experiences of my early life, and it was the first really rewarding volunteer positions I ever had. Thanks, Public Libraries.
Library cutbacks are shortsighted
*this column originally ran August 6, 2007 in the Toronto Star. How depressing that we’re back at this again…
I remember my father, a rabid gardener, teaching me what the huge piles of dirt beside new housing developments meant. He explained that they scrape off all the topsoil to sell. I asked how things grew if there was no dirt left. He said people had to buy it back, or just hope for the best while planting in soil devoid of nutrients.
It didn’t make much sense to me at the time; cynicism has made me wiser.
I’ve been following the latest proposed municipal budget cuts. I’m no lobbyist, and I don’t have any special interests, but for the life of me, I will never understand the slashing and pillaging of funds destined for libraries.
If you haven’t been in a library recently, you need to go.
Rest of column here:
As a child the library was the first place I was allowed to venture to without an adult & spent many summer afternoons picking out books with friends & lugging them home to read.As an adult I have a job at that same library where such important & vital childhood memories were made & have the pleasure of seeing the next generation create their own special memories a midst the stacks of books filled with adventures & stories they themselves will get lost in.
The public library is a space the community really gathers around & uses.It’s a place in which resources are plentiful & I believe has a positive impact on the environment by keeping one less book out of the landfill. To pick up a book that many others have experience & enjoyed or despised just adds to the experience & the story within the book.
Thank you, public libraries, for providing information to me regardless of my economic class. Without you, I would be stuck citing Wikipedia in my school papers. Without you, I would have no chance to use Facebook to interact with my friends and have nowhere to check my email. Without you, I would have nowhere to explore new ideas and possibilities without judgement or cost. THANK YOU!
I thank public libraries when a sole income parent. Public libraries kept my daughter in books and videos; me in parenting books & other reading.
My youngest just got her first library card a few months ago. She is so proud every time she uses it!
My grandparents sold books to schools and public libraries and I was lucky to get to tag along from a very young age!
