Death of a library
I wrote this blog in the early morning hours Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2013, but its essential truth remains the same today. Decisions will be made at the next board of aldermen meeting on Oct. 21. If the decision goes against us, I have no idea what lies ahead.
It's 4 a.m. on a cold October morning, 2013, and I can't sleep. I'm mourning the death of a nine-year-old "child" who was born on June 26, 2004 in a small southeast Missouri town in the northern reaches of a county called Stoddard.
I would estimate that no one in this town even knows who Major Amos Stoddard was, or how he died from a tetanus infection, after being shot defending Fort Meigs in the War of 1812. His name was placed on our county in 1835, 68 years before Advance was founded in 1881.
Does all this matter? Does history matter? Does learning matter?
This little town of Advance existed for 123 years without a library. Why does it need one now? Who reads anymore?
Excuse my frustration. It's early in the morning, and I'm sad and discouraged. I have been fighting the "good fight" for nine years.
In 2003, Advance Mayor James J. Harnes, Sr. gathered a group of individuals together under the name "Advance Community Team," and he charged us with, among other tasks, cleaning out the ditches in north Stoddard County, reopening the senior center, and establishing a library in Advance.
It seems that our good mayor had attended a meeting of mayors, where another mayor said to him, "What? Advance doesn't have a library? Every civilized city has a library!"
Stung by this criticism, the good mayor returned to his city, determined to correct the situation.
He learned that it was not an easy task. One of the difficulties was that he himself had encouraged the citizens of his town to vote an end to personal property taxes. Instead, the idea was to increase the city sales tax by one-half cent, with one-fourth cent going to the fire department and one-fourth going to parks. The resulting revenue was sufficient to sustain that area of government quite nicely.
But wait! How could anyone have known that industry would leave the small towns of America? How could anyone predict that our factories would move to Mexico, and India, and other countries with faraway names?
What is happening to America?
Now our sales tax dwindles. Down, down, down goes our small city revenue, and we can only watch in bewilderment as our once busy buildings sit empty, their vacant windows staring at us blindly.
And what about the tiny library which a band of volunteers struggled to open in June 2004?
It had no economic niche. It was started with no money, no funding, no books, no computers, no building, no employees, no resources but the sweat of our brows.
The superintendent of schools offered us a room in his administrative building, and a used book store donated our first books. Gradually, we added computers from a Gates grant, began to cull the old books and add new ones.
It has been a nine-year struggle, and in the process, I have learned that even a cause as worthy as a library has enemies. Forces beyond my understanding are against us.
I don't know what lies ahead in the next few weeks and months, but it doesn't look good.
It's now 5:30 a.m. and I look through my window at a dark sky.
Tonight, we hold a meeting with the mayor to discuss the future of the Advance Library.
I pray for guidance to keep that 9-year-old child--our library--alive, so that it may grow into an adult that we can be proud of.
Comments
- -- Posted by starrynight_3945 on Fri, Oct 11, 2013, at 2:40 PM
- -- Posted by Madeline1 on Fri, Oct 11, 2013, at 5:48 PM
- -- Posted by FJGuy on Tue, Oct 22, 2013, at 1:48 PM
- -- Posted by goat lady on Tue, Oct 22, 2013, at 4:52 PM
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