County-Wide LIbrary voted down

This year a county-wide library for Cache Valley was on the ballot.  Those of us who live outside of Logan have no rights to check books out from the Logan library.  Thanks to Steve's brother, Bob, we do have a library card we can use.  What a blessing that is for us.  Yet, I worry about the others in our valley without access to a decent library.  We do have a tiny city library.  The collection is a tenth what Logan has and only contains the books someone has deemed most popular.  An avid reader would read through the collection quickly.

Arguments against a county-wide library center on the desire for no new taxes.  In his monthly newsletter, our mayor said "I have talked to so many citizens about the county wide library and for the most part I get the same comments, we have libraries in every school, Logan library, Hyrum library, USU library, so why create another government entity to tax us. Nothing is for free; this will cost the citizens of Providence over $230,000 dollars a year which will come as a tax and once a tax, always a tax. It will not decrease or go away. It will only increase."  I'm sure his opinion poisoned Providence against the measure.


Having a library that you cannot check out books from is not a huge benefit.  Others said we don't need a library because they are archaic. We won't need them in the future because we have kindles and can read books online.  Not everyone has internet access.   While I have access to the internet and use it for a host of research activities, I do not read books online.  Kindles may work for some, but they are expensive.  Would a family of seven need seven Kindles?  Just because some people have other options, certainly all don't.

I think the saddest comment, though, was from a few women in my area who said they were against the library because  they never had time to read. While some people really are too busy, these women are no busier than I and likely less busy.  The one woman admitted, "Reading was never done in my family.  It just isn't a  habit I have."  Political opinions aside, I found that sad.


I have had times in my life that have been so crazy that I haven't read a lot of books, but I always valued them.  I have had a crumby Fall and haven't been reading much.  I finally decided I would be much happier if I started making reading a priority again.  I am reading Laura Bush's book, "Spoken from the Heart."  I have loved it.  I have found myself weeping for the victims of 9-11, being touched by the goodness of people, and being transported into another world.   She tells of a time when her daughter, Barbara, was having a difficult time.   "George went to her room and sat down on her bed to console her as she told him what was wrong. He would not leave until he had begun to make it better. Afterward, I walked into my small upstairs office next to Barbara's room and found one of my young staff members in tears.  She had heard bits and pieces of the conversation through the thin connecting door.  She was sobbing telling me how desperately she wished that she had had a father like George."  I thought it was touching.

She quotes the author Eudora Welty, "I learned from the age of two or three, that any room in our house, at anytime of day, was there to read in, or to be read to.  It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that storybooks had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass."

I feel sorry for people who don't read and consider it so unimportant that they won't create a library for others to have that privilege.

I think it was Mark Twain who said,  "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them."