THE STORY SPOT

They’ve gone crazy again, those politicians. As if cutting funding to schools isn’t enough, they’re rummaging around in the library budgets to ensure an even more ignorant generation than the last.

Fret not! You can do your part to keep the books on the shelves and not sold off in a fire sale, for goodness sake. Here’s the entire appeal from the Library Foundation of Los Angeles:

A drastic cut in the number of books on the shelves and closing libraries on Sundays will be among the effects of the proposed City budget for the Los Angeles Public Library.

Now is the time to voice your support for this essential educational and cultural resource by asking the Mayor and City Council to reverse these devastating cuts to the Library’s budget.

On May 1, the Los Angeles City Council is scheduled to hold public hearings regarding the proposed 2008-2009 City Budget.

We urge you to make your concern known to the Mayor and members of the City Council, whose contact information may be accessed here.

Here’s what you can do:

· E-mail, fax or telephone the mayor or city officials, using the sample letter we have provided for your reference.

· Share these key message points as well as the sample letter with other friends and colleagues who in turn can serve as advocates.

· You or your friends can appear in person at the May 1 public hearings to show your concern with a sign or a T-shirt that indicates your support for restored city funding of the library. Your presence will certainly make a difference. Be sure to check City Hall schedules to confirm day and time of the proposed budget hearings.

By its charter, the Library Foundation is to raise private funds that supplement but do not supplant the City’s responsibility to fund core services. Specifically, the Library Foundation is to fund enhancement programs for children, teens and adults; the City is to fund books, staff, maintenance, security, and infrastructure. Now our city leaders must do their share and meet their obligation to adequately fund the library.

Thank you for your support of the Los Angeles Public Library!

The Library Foundation of Los Angeles

Library Foundation of Los Angeles
630 West Fifth Street
Los Angeles CA 90071
Phone: 213.228.7500
Fax: 213.228.7509
libfnd@yahoo.com
http://www.libraryfoundationla.org

Recently, the always-insightful Michael Silverblatt interviewed Pulitzer-winner Geraldine Brooks, author of a new work of fiction, People of the Book.

They discussed the possible prevention of great cultural loss in the future as has been in the past. I wanted to transcribe this for you, as I find it to be most eloquent:

I think it comes down to whether or not we can bring people to appreciate that what unites us is greater than what divides us.

We don’t have a really good track record over the centuries. We make these wonderful multicultural societies from time to time and when we make them, they turn out to be the prosperous ones and the creative ones and they’re the ones that move the ball forward with human knowledge.

But then we have this fear of otherness that comes up and smashes them over and over again and then you’re left with something harrowed and sterile and monocultural. Just as monocultures aren’t healthy for agriculture they’re not so healthy for human culture either.

True and true.

Keep reading brazenly and doing so in public.

Geraldine Brooks on Bookworm, March 13, 2008
More on Geraldine Brooks
Michael Silverblatt’s Bookworm on Santa Monica-based KCRW