Libraries Are a Bargain

First of all, I hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving. For myself, I believe I am fully recovered from the food coma that was Thursday. The Packers smoking the Lions helped.

Now onto more mundane stuff-- it is difficult to pin down the exact economic impact of libraries, but recent studies indicate that it is significant. In Wisconsin, a study done in 2008 indicated that for every tax dollar spent to support libraries, the state's residents got back over $4 in goods and services. The full report can be found here, along with links to other studies.

This echoes findings found in the rest of the country, as well. Studies done in Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Washington show similar results. In Ohio, a study showed that nine public library systems generated an annual economic impact of nearly four times the amount invested in their operations.

Libraries draw people to a community, bring people in to shopping districts and downtown areas. We offer job training and retraining help in difficult economic times, and help to those learning the vital computer skills so important in the 21st century. We connect individuals and groups and offer a backbone of knowledge that benefits not just our patrons but everyone they interact with before and after their visits.

The Wisconsin Library Association had a catch phrase a few years back that I think sums it up well: If knowledge is power, than libraries are power plants.

And we are-- efficient, highly flexible and adaptable power plants.

The Economic Impact of Libraries

Many people love their local library. We love the books. We love the smell. We love the movies and the programs and the computer access and the magazines. We love studying there, researching there, and going to storytimes and other programs there. For us, the library is a wondrous place, full of fun, full of adventure, full of opportunity.

But what about those folks in the community who don’t love, or even use, the library? It’s important to for them to know just how valuable a good local library really is—not just in societal or cultural terms, but in cold, hard economic terms. A recent survey we conducted indicates that over 90% of the people that visit the Mukwonago library do other shopping and business within the village during their trips to the library. Additionally, in a 2007 survey of Wisconsin residents, 29.7% of respondents list access to a good library as a strong factor in deciding where to live. Another 31.7% list it as a contributing factor—nearly two-thirds of those surveyed consider the local library in deciding where to live.

Finally, it should be noted that the Mukwonago Community Library is not only an economic asset for the community, it is also an incredibly efficient municipal entity. We have the lowest cost per circulation in the county and among the lowest in the country. For every tax dollar that goes to the library, nearly six dollars worth of materials and services are made available to our patrons. So tell everyone you know how economically valuable the library is!

Rant or Rave: Nineteen Eighty-four

Note to self: following a book that, at its core, celebrates the human spirit while acknowledging its shortcomings with a book that unrelentingly examines the darkside of human nature is both fascinating and unsettling. But that's what I did when I followed up Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird with George Orwell's, Nineteen Eighty-four. 1984 is a profound, thought provoking masterpiece. It is also disturbing, depressing and hard to digest.

In capsule form, the strangeness of following one with the other boils down to two iconic passages, one from each book. I went from Mockingbird's: “Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy . . . but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.” to Nineteen Eighty-four's: "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."

I do not regret reading it-- far from it, I wish I had read it sooner (slightly shamefaced admission, though I knew the gist of Orwell's classic book, I had never read it). But. It is not light fare. It is profoundly scary to think about the world Orwell describes and how it is not inconceivable even today. Hopefully the free exchange of information and ideas enabled by modern technology is making it less likely with each passing year and technological breakthrough.

Still, technology is what makes the Big Brother state of 1984 possible-- the constant surveillance of the telescreens, the ability of the Party to control the present, manipulate the past and thus determine the future-- so it is a double-edged sword. I also look to public library's as a bulwark against the type of disinformation and "doublespeak" so vital to the Big Brother state described in 1984. Still another reason why library's are important community institutions.

Though disturbing and depressing, Nineteen Eighty-four is profoundly important and still terribly relevant. It remains a book that should be on the short list of "must read" novels, and likely one that should be on the even shorter list of "must read more than once" novels.

Read it, digest it, and then go sit in the nice warm sun, free from observation by anyone and free to think and feel whatever you desire. And appreciate how lucky we are to live in a free and open society.

What He Said

Hard to expand on this article, detailing the importance of libraries. Also, the dangers libraries often face during municipal budget cutting phases. Key bit:

If education and information are going to provide the means as America digs itself out the great big hole we are in, the public library is handing out the shovels. Cut or kill the libraries and you yank away a shovel.

So please, Mayor IT Guy. And Mayors anywhere else, for that matter. Leave the libraries alone. Believe me. They are not a luxury, but a lifeline.

• New York

Michael Bloomberg may be the ultimate IT Guy. Okay, maybe that's still Bill Gates. But the point is, Michael Bloomberg took Information and Technology and made himself an empire with Bloomberg News. T...

Michael Bloomberg may be the ultimate IT Guy. Okay, maybe that's still Bill Gates. But the point is, Michael Bloomberg took Information and Technology and made himself an empire with Bloomberg News. T...