Support the Duluth Public Library

fodpl Aug 12, 2011 14 Comments

Support the public library at the Duluth City Council Meeting.
Please join us on Monday, Aug. 15, when we again attend the council meeting. We’ll gather at 6:30 p.m. outside the Council Chambers at City Hall. Please come and help to support our coordinated campaign to keep the Duluth Public Library a top priority for city funding. The message is, “Our libraries are essential!”

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14 Comments

emmadogs

about 13 years ago 

Absolutely.  We are incredibly lucky to have such a superb public library system.  99.9% of the time, the Library has the book I am looking for.  Our libraries are what make Duluth such a special city to live in.

Chris

about 13 years ago 

We need to have our libraries open during normal library hours.  The health of our community and commitment to open access to information depends on it.  Instead of tax cuts for the wealthy, we should open the libraries.

BoB

about 13 years ago 

I wasn't aware that library hours were reduced due to tax cuts being issued to the wealthy.

Quit with the rhetoric, Chris.  A public library shouldn't BE a top priority.  We have many, many more issues facing us before we worry about hiring a bunch of full time employees to staff a non-essential public service--and by "non-essential," I'm referring to the fact that Duluth would continue to function normally without libraries.  Are they nice to have?  Sure they are.  Are they anywhere close to being considered "essential"?  Nope.

BoB

about 13 years ago 

Much like the county and city merging many of their services, perhaps it is time that the city, school district and UMD merge services to provide public library access to the City of Duluth.  There is no reason for Duluth to have an additional library system.  We need to find ways to save money and resources, and this seems to be a perfect manner in which to start.

-Berv

about 13 years ago 

Yes, libraries are the problem.

zra

about 13 years ago 

No reason, BoB? that kind of hyperbole smacks of the "if I don't use it then it doesn't need to exist" variety of the entitled class "Me" party rhetoric.

To your point, childhood literacy is probably the biggest and most important reason of all ... far and beyond the public school library system which may or may not contain all of the reading resources and programs that school libraries provide (which, by the way, are also forced to cut back on the number of books they are able to buy because of their own budgetary problems).

You personally might not have a dog in the fight at all with regards to the actual use of the library system, but there are thousands of others who depend on it for the resources it provides, but if you follow the flow of money (or in this case, the lack thereof) you'll actually see that the trickle down theory is working, all too well. It trickles. And trickles in lean times dry up.

It's high time the Me partiers start thinking of the children of their children.

Lojasmo

about 13 years ago 

All the poors in the central and west city can clearly somehow take the time, effort, and cost to schlep them and their resource consuming brood up to UMD.

Stupid cask AC welfare queens.

/BoB

Lojasmo

about 13 years ago 

Cadilac

BoB

about 13 years ago 

There's always LSC's library. But then, poor people don't walk up hills, do they?

Also: Libraries don't teach kids to read.  If they are, we've got bigger problems with our school system that we pay for to do that very job.  As for funding, taking a fraction of public library finances and applying them to our educational libraries would solve the budgetary issues you have alluded to.

But lemme guess ... that's not good enough, right?

Deb

about 13 years ago 

Wouldn't want poor people using a library. 

Hell, one of 'em might grow up to be, say, an Andrew Carnegie.

Amber

about 13 years ago 

I've voted for the public library and I don't know much about its history. Can you help me?

Amber

about 13 years ago 

I agree with zra!

Paul Lundgren

about 13 years ago 

Here's a half-assed library history:

The first Duluth Public Library opened in the late 1800s on the second floor of the Masonic Temple Opera Block.

The first facility built exclusively as the city's public library was at 101 W. Second St. Andrew Carnegie donated $25,000 for construction of the neo-classical building, designed by Duluth architect Adolph R. Rudolph. The Carnegie Library served as Duluth's public library from 1902 to 1980. 

The current library on Superior Street and Fifth Avenue West was designed by Gunnar Birkerts to resemble an ore boat, but most people think it looks like a cheesy starship.

emmadogs

about 13 years ago 

There are so many gorgeous old buildings in Duluth, and that Carnegie building is one--just lovely.  Our current Mt Royal branch is airy and sunny.

On the other hand, no matter how many really cool murals are installed, the godawful ugliness known as the Main Branch is just not nice to look at.  I keep my eyes on the Depot instead--that's a nice one.

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