In order to get attention for the campaign to raise money to help out the Louisville Public Library, a whole bunch of people are blogging today on why libraries are so important to us, both personally and professionally.
My take on why libraries kick ass? Because they provide the necessary tools – for free – to be an informed, responsible citizen of the United States (yes, I’m being US-centric today, others will blog about the importance of libraries in other countries, I’m sure). With the amount of disinformation and rumor that is passed around on topics as important as the economy, health care and our government, it’s nice to know that there is an unbiased source of information that is completely free for our citizens. They can go to their local library and read from a selection of local and national newspapers, check out information on the Web, look up articles from both scholarly and popular magazines in databases and get help with doing all of this from people who have made it their life’s work to provide this information. Without this free source of information, the access to information required for an informed citizenry is based on ability to pay – and that isn’t very democratic!
All libraries kick ass – no matter where they are located. This particular library, however, is in need of some help, so if you have been provided information for free from some helpful librarian, please consider donating a few bucks to help these hard-working librarians out!
Categories
