What libraries mean to me personally
President Trump has proposed the elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). According to the American Library Association’s website, this would mean the end of all federal funding for our country’s libraries.
Yesterday I wrote to my congressional representatives in Washington, DC asking them to stand up for libraries and library users by opposing all cuts to IMLS funding. I hope that reading my words will inspire you to write as well. (If you have not already done so. Of course you have.)
As a library studies student and a working professional who understands the importance of libraries, I am writing to express my strong opposition to President Trump’s proposal to eliminate funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
I grew up in a low-income household in Roxboro, North Carolina. My parents were two of the hardest working people on earth, but they could never earn the money they needed to make all the ends meet. They certainly could not afford to buy books, though they definitely encouraged me and my siblings to read. I did, so much that my parents used to say I was working my brain too hard with reading. I did not care. I loved to read so much. Before I learned how to read, I would cry just watching other people do this thing that I knew I wanted to do too. I knew I was missing out on something important because I could not interpret the written word. So once I got to the point where I could read, I read everything I could.
The library allowed me to see beyond my circumstances into what the future could be. In elementary school, I used to check out career books from the school library. I read about being a scientist, a secretary, a doctor – anything that sounded interesting, and I was interested in just about everything. In junior high and high school, I fell in love with the town’s public library. There I found all the magazines and books that I could not get at school, materials I needed for research papers and to satisfy my ever-growing curiosity about life. I did not understand every word I read, but that did not matter. The important thing was that I was learning to think for myself and dialogue with the world around me.
I graduated at the top of my high school class. I went on to earn a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from Duke. I speak a second language and have traveled to three foreign continents. I hold a communications position that pays well, and I have a comfortable standard of living. None of this would have happened without the support of good libraries. That is why I am writing this letter. I have not just seen what a library can do for a kid, I have lived it. I am doing everything I can to ensure that libraries have the resources they need to survive, so that other kids from low-income families can access the resources I had.
The popular thing to say now is that we no longer need libraries because of the Internet. Little do the people who say this realize that the Internet is one of the main reasons why libraries are still so important! Librarians help people distinguish between real and fake news on the Internet. They teach computer skills to displaced workers struggling to keep up with technological change. Library computers help bridge the digital divide for kids who are being asked to turn in homework by email when they do not even have a computer at home – or when they only have access to one iPhone that everyone else in the household is using. People who are barely making ends meet cannot always afford to pay for consistent internet access, even if they live in an area where internet access is available. They need library computer resources that will allow them to search for jobs online and complete college applications, so that they won’t have to choose between the Internet and groceries. Libraries simply cannot provide this help to the extent that they have in the past without continued federal funding.
I recently spoke with a person who worked in the field of rural economic development for several years. She told me that one of the first things corporate representatives would say when deciding whether to set up shop in a community was: “Let me see your library.” To them, the upkeep of the public library was an indicator of what the community’s priorities were. They did not want to do business in communities where the libraries were in bad shape, because they thought their employees would be unhappy in those communities.
At a time when rural communities are barely hanging on economically and workers are being swept underwater by waves of technological change, the last thing our federal government needs to be doing is cutting funds for the very institutions that are keeping people afloat. Please stand with libraries and with the people who need them by opposing any cuts to IMLS funding.
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Stacy Torian 