New chapter begins

We have big bookstores, small bookstores, Internet cafes, Amazon and eBay. There are more bestseller lists, merchandising tie-ins and retail opportunities for book and magazine sales than you could ever imagine.

So why is it that cash-strapped communities across America remain committed to financing and building public libraries when we have the private sector to do our work?

The answer is simple.

Books are an investment in knowledge. We learn to read, then we read to learn. An educated public is a productive public, and the government has a direct stake in seeing its citizens become knowledgeable and enlightened. Public libraries (and educational facilities in general) are the means to that end.

"We need the best schools, best textbooks, smallest class sizes and best libraries so that our children can compete in the 21st century," said California Treasurer Phil Angiledes at a ceremony last week in which Calabasas received the first installment of an $8.2 million state grant to build a public library at the city’s new civic center.

Other cities in Los Angeles County arguably could have used the money more—hospital emergency rooms are lacking and many schools are in a state of disrepair—but the authorization to fund the Calabasas Library and others like it came as the result of a measure known as Proposition 14 in which libraries were deemed just as important as other institutions and recognized as an investment in the future.

The city’s new library, theater and city hall complex will still be standing long after you and I are gone.

In a span of just six years, Agoura Hills, Westlake Village and Calabasas all will have built new public libraries. The point’s been argued repeatedly that one regional library might have been more cost effective, but the broader fact remains: Public libraries form the bedrock of our culture and their value can never be underestimated.

Let’s close the book on those who say libraries are passé. A new age of enlightenment has only just begun.

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