∞ Libraries and (cultural) capital

180 Words filed by Frank @ 14:53 | 05-Mar-07 in libraries |

Interesting juxtaposition. Tomorrow, voters in my hometown, Pasadena, California, will be deciding whether to pass a tax to help support the public library system there. (Actually, what they’re voting on is whether to extend a “special tax” that was already approved in 1993 and then extended in 1997.) If the tax extension doesn’t pass, the funding stream provided by the tax will dry up at the end of June 2008.

Meanwhile, in Jackson County, Oregon, it looks like the entire county-wide library system will close next month because federal funding has dried up. (The direct cause is Congress failing to re-authorize an annual subsidy for timber-dependent counties in 41 states under the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000, signed by Bill Clinton in his last months in office.)

Libraries as cultural capital: or, considered more directly, libraries as capital. Will we get to the point, when people no longer consider libraries to be worth their weight in cultural capital, that the only way a public library will be able to stay open anymore will be through the auspices of a federal subsidy? ★

Commenting is closed for this article.