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Library stories: Read this one (get it?)

Since I left my full-time job last year and became a father a few years ago, there is one place that I’ve truly enjoyed visiting: The public library.

My visits to libraries wherever I was have gone up and down, based on my age, interests and point in life.

But I’ve always gone back – even during an era when it’s easy to argue that information is at your digital fingertips with the Internet and especially hipster phones such as the iPhone.

There are many reasons why I’ve returned to libraries over the decades:

They offer a quiet place to read, reflect and study.

I’ve used libraries in Silicon Valley (as a kid), Guangzhou and Beijing (as a foreign language student), New York City (as a graduate student) and Seattle and its suburbs (as a parent and just ordinary person).

Yes, I’ve been fortunate enough to travel in the past.

Here’s a catch: Libraries need money to operate (meaning to stay open at the least) - and budget cutbacks have arrived.

The Seattle Public Library, for example, is going to have limited hours starting Feb. 3. Last year, the Seattle library system closed for a period because of money – and I know parents were concerned.

In the Seattle suburbs, the King County Library System – the third busiest system in the country – has a ballot measure slated for Feb. 9, asking voters to consider an increase in property tax to raise money for support.

In 2008, people who used this county-wide system checked out more than 20 million items.

Here’s a catch: People are still feeling the pinch of the Great Recession. When personal budgets are tighter, um, consumer spending – to use those words – takes a dip.

So does largess.

Just a quick note to the free lunch crowd that has money but believes public use means you can use it and never pay for it: That model can’t work in the long run and even can have problems in the short run – especially when the country is trying to leave the Great Recession.

If you believe U.S. News and World Report, then irrational people are actually crucial to spending and helping pull the country out of its current spot.

But, then again, you have to question whether you want rational or irrational players in the country.

Here’s a catch: There are large organizations and institutions that still have money, though they have taken financial hits, to support library system programs.

Many have – and many in the public, including myself, realize this and are grateful.

But if we’re talking about limited hours and less access for the public to, well, learn, is it time to rethink the rate and conditions under which money is given?

I remember reading recently about libraries at the University of California at Berkeley that received money from parents to help keep them open.

As I recall, one parent even stepped up with dollars to keep the 24-hour library open for students during their final exams.

Here are some gems of quotes cited in The Daily Californian from Thomas Leonard, the chief librarian at the Berkeley campus:

We know that group study is very important and sometimes groups can work more easily when they are in a branch library because the material is all there….When people show up with pillows and books to study it’s pretty convincing that they take their libraries very seriously.

My point and it’s clear by now: Libraries certainly fill a community role in cities throughout the world. They help stimulate the brain.

How can you argue with that?

But with uncertainty – there’s that word again – still looming for a country trying to leave the Great Recession, well, there’s an undercurrent of conflict.

Many people only realize it when they arrive at the library only to find that the doors are locked and read signs on the windows explaining why they are shuttered.

If the U.S. economy was on a true upswing – and not one on the outer edges of expanding bubbles – it would be easy for ordinary people to reach in their wallets and donate $100 or so on the spot.

Now, in terms of giving money through higher property taxes, you’d probably get this response: Let me think about this.

But the benefits are many: A plethora of books, DVDs, helpful librarians, time to meet authors and community classes.

Those include computer classes, courses on finding a job and sessions on how to make paper airplanes (ideal for kids, of course), learning about cartoons (ideal for older kids), paying your taxes and learning English.

The King County Library System even has offers for free passes to certain museums in the Seattle area.

Need help from a librarian at any hour of the day during the week?

The Seattle library system has this link to help you.

In the past, my family and I have enjoyed visiting the reading hours for children at the Central Library in downtown Seattle.

We sing along, clap our hands. You get the idea.

If I was single and in my 20s, there would be no way I would be found anywhere close to such an event.

Now, I love going with my wife and son when we have time.

At the Seattle Public Library branch in the city’s Chinatown International District, we’ve attended some terrific reading hours, which stress singing, art and listening.

In the suburbs, we go to a regional library where there’s not only a sing-along class for kids but a Mandarin reading hour as well.

When I was a graduate student in New York City, I went to my university’s 24-hour library on a Friday evening, thinking that I could get a chair and space to study.

You know what?

All the chairs were full – with biology books flipped open. My thought at the time: I think these undergraduates are the pre-med crowd.

In Beijing, I walked over to my university library on a Sunday around 9 a.m., thinking that students were relaxing from a late Saturday night and that I could find space.

One time, I found an empty chair but a book was on the table.

To me, that meant the space was free. At this university in Beijing, it meant that someone had reserved the space. A young woman returned. We talked about the open-seat-with-book-in-front-of-it issue.

I finally left. Other times, that library was so busy that I just grabbed a chair and sat by the doorway with my book open.

And my dad, who has grandchildren, loves going to the public library to get videos for them to watch when they visit. 

In addition to apartments and houses, people – especially those whose brilliance will open business, academic and technological doors for future generations – do need places to go to reflect and talk with people in person.

When I think about public libraries and how I’ve used them over the decades, I’m reminded of the words that you hear in real-life love stories:

Don’t forget me.

UPDATE: On the issue of money and how people who have bundles of it spend it, I know it’s their decision on how they use what’s in their accounts.

It’s their money.

But I glanced at the San Francisco Chronicle and learned that gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman just donated her campaign $20 million.

That’s all fine and good, as the words go these days, because it is her money. She is the former chief executive of eBay.

It wouldn’t surprise me if she has donated her money to many worthy, public-interest causes over the years.

But in the winning-at-all-costs (or zero sum) game that is played in politics these days and the high financing of it, have people lost track of common sense?

How does spending $20 million on her campaign differ from, say, spending $15 million?

I know California is a big state. I also know that some might argue that she has to spend that amount of money in order to win to support policies that can help all Californians.

But it seems like if she trimmed her donation to herself by a few million dollars, she could have spent some of it (or all of it) in California or for library systems, such as the ones in the Seattle area, in the United States that need it.

She’s probably wise enough to know that campaign contributions are widely discussed and she will receive questions such as this.

An opponent, Steve Poizner, reportedly has kicked in $19 million of his own money to his own campaign, the Chronicle reported.

As Chronicle writer Joe Garofoli noted, that $20 million adds to her impressive warchest:

That gives her $30.5 million in the bank….which is more than uh, the state of California has. Hey, Meg — can you toss the state a few million to allow poor kids to keep their health care intact and maybe keep a park open?