Editorial: Dear Laura Bush

Barely 200 miles from your ranch at Crawford, TX, in a suburb of Fort Worth, a public library system has closed. That means that over 21,000 households, 47,000 people, are without their community library or the professionals who run it. The cause: a local tax rollback that passed by merely ten votes out of some 10,000 cast and reduced property taxes by nearly 20 percent per $100 of assessed value. Apparently, some of the voters who wanted to save a few bucks on taxes—about $142.50, if they happen to own a $150,000 house, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram—never realized their libraries, and many other municipal services, were at stake.

Now in mid-April, a full reprieve for the Bedford Public Library seems unlikely. Even in Salinas, CA, where residents have rallied and raised money to run their endangered library, the funds can sustain no more than one-day-a-week service. The vote in Bedford may be "an anomaly," as state librarian Peggy Rudd told LJ, that "didn't have anything to do with the library." Nevertheless, it is an indicator that our citizens fail to comprehend fully that their public services like libraries are underwritten by their taxes.

As a teacher and school librarian, your heart may be in the K–12 arena, but you have had a huge impact on federal-level support for public libraries and the profession. Federal funding for libraries through the Institute of Museum and Library Services has regularly increased in the President's budget during the Bush administration. Through your efforts, $50 million has been set aside to train and retain new librarians. And you have taken the model you created while you were Texas's First Lady—the Texas Book Festival to celebrate books and reading—to Washington, DC, where the National Book Festival is in its fifth year. We in the library field are very grateful for your efforts.

Now, we need your help again, more than ever. The threat to public libraries like Bedford in your home state is deeply disturbing. After all, public libraries provide access to lifelong learning and education, recreational reading and other materials, and resources of every type and format to all community members, with merely a proof of residency required. As one student stated in a video that ran continuously on screens at a recent library conference, "Libraries are one of the best things a society can give back to itself."

At the rally for Texas libraries last month in Austin at the state capitol during the Texas Library Association conference, some 1000 librarians brought down the House, literally. Their cry for library funding was so loud that it stopped action on the floor of the Texas State House, according to State Librarian Rudd. Two representatives left the House floor during debate to come out and speak to the demonstrators, many of whom carried banners (supplied by library company Thomson Gale) proclaiming, "Texans Love Libraries" and "Invest in Texas Libraries." They were Harvey Hilderbran, the Republican chair of the oversight committee responsible for libraries, and Jose Menendez, a Democrat who has supported appropriations for TexShare, the Texas statewide database program. They both know, as do you, that funding for libraries is a nonpartisan issue.

As "First Librarian" you've done much for libraries on the federal level. Now we hope that you'll come out to support Bedford and other community libraries that need your help.

fialkoff@reedbusiness.com