When Libraries Go, So Does the Heart of

any community, indeed any country.

The purposes of libraries are to help to educate the public by providing information and to preserve the past of any society for future generations.

Well, hell, the rich can always have their private libraries and anything people need to know is on the internet anyway, even if a lot of it isn't.

Jackson County's Libraries

finally opened after being closed due to Congress sitting on its collective ass and doing basically nothing about it except a short term bandaid solution, but that's only because services were outsourced to a private outfit, thus saving money on labor costs.

The contractor has half the budget of the old, and hours are reduced.

This is a shitty way to resolve a problem.

As the World Turns.

Well, maybe that was the goal all the time in the Jackson County library closures, and that's to outsource operations to some private outfit.

Note workers will NOT receive retirement benefits from the Public Employees Retirement System, which means they will get shit benefits.
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Don't People Who Support

frills like libraries know that everything can be looked up on the internet or can be downloaded as ebooks at home?

Who needs something stupid like libraries?

Unfortunately, proposals in Congress to funnel money to Oregon's counties are being attached to other bills, bills that our dictator would likely shoot down.

I hate this shit because libraries are SO essential to communities. No private collection can match what public libraries have to offer.

Idiots

in Jackson County, Oregon, are turning down the library levy to reopen the county system.

What dumb shits. Do they hate libraries that much?

You Know Things

are pretty shittin' bad when the area near my hometown of Medford, Oregon, makes the NYT.

This article is about the decline of timber receipts and the closing of Jackson County libraries.

Now the question is whether May 15 will be another turning point. With the timber industry in steep decline because of environmental challenges and market changes and with prospects uncertain that Congress will bail out timber counties, as it has before, Jackson County voters will decide that day whether to increase taxes to pay for the libraries.

Some other counties in southern Oregon are in equally dire straits. In Josephine County, voters will decide on May 15 whether to tax themselves an average of $300 more a year to keep basic law enforcement services running. Curry County, which also has a ballot measure, has said it could go bankrupt on July 1.

In Jackson County, voting yes on the library measure would raise property taxes about $9 a month for an average homeowner, enough to finance the $8 million annual budget of the library system. Experts expect the vote to be close.