the fall of the public library

shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

if we listen closely, we can hear the sound of yet another public institution crumbling. sadly, i work at a place that i have pretty accurately nicknamed The Titanic. i love working here. i love my customers. i love the library.

i've been in love with the library for a lifetime. i was a little girl checking out books with my mother in the 80s. we went to every program that the branch by our modest two-family flat offered. i celebrated halloween there making paiper-mache pumpkins and seeing the headless horseman for myself. the library was a wondrous place.

that wondrous place hired me to shelve the books. those books that i shelved led me to find buddhism, which offers me a place of solace. those same shelves called out to me one fall afternoon to try my hand at a Master's in librarianship. so i listened.

i found that librarianship merged my need for community service with my desire for a regular paycheck. nothing lavish, but a paycheck nonetheless. years have passed since that time. i've moved up the food chain to manage my own little corner of the library world and now the ass has fallen out of even that.

allegations of administrative corruption and misspent funding abound and staff members are faced with layoffs. what happened to that community hub that was so beloved to me? i feel like i am on the outside looking in as i see newspaper articles surface about my employer by the day. all i can do is wait and hope that enough people create enough fuss to say that we refuse to be asleep at the wheel when the library comes to a grinding halt.