Libraries have come a long way, baby, from when I was a little girl strolling with my parents into the Mid-Continent Public Library in Claycomo, a Kansas City suburb, to obtain my first library card. I was a new reader, and excited by the vast number of books the library held. Back then, the mid-1960’s, the library was primarily a place to check out books or conduct research for a report. My young mind would never in a million years have dreamed of what libraries would become by 2022. You see, libraries in most communities have changed with the times. The public can still check out books and do reports, but there’s much more going on. Libraries serve communities in many more ways; in fact, some are learning centers for their neighborhoods. There are libraries where people can obtain passports, register to vote, get online to research genealogy or apply for a job, learn how to speak languages, knit, hold classes and events. Libraries, if implemented properly, are community centers.

Before she retired in 2020, Carolyn Ashcraft, the Arkansas State Librarian and I talked about Arkansas library funding. “The majority of the libraries across the state that have dedicated library funding, they are at one mill or less. That’s not enough to run a quality library,” she said. “I know people are anti-tax, but we really need people to understand the connection between libraries and education and libraries and economy. And if they would invest a little bit more in those libraries, I think it would benefit everybody’s community. People need to get more involved and look at their county’s budget and see what’s going on.”

With this information you can imagine the dire straits that the Jonesboro, Arkansas Library finds itself in after voters in Jonesboro and Craighead County voted on Nov. 3, to approve a decrease in library property tax from 2 mills to 1 mill in two separate millage elections. The millage decrease will take effect in both the county and city on Jan. 1, 2023. The final but unofficial results were: County results For the 1-mill decrease — 5,626 Against the decrease — 3,520 City results For the 1-mill decrease — 9,017 Against the decrease — 8, 969 It was one of those ballot questions that was worded so that “For” means lessening an opportunity, in other words, hurting the library and those who use it. Voters passed a 1-mill increase in 1994 to help build three branch libraries. The millage rate has remained the same for the last 28 years. Yes, it hasn’t changed or been increased in 28 years. And now voters, cut that funding in half to the peril of young and old readers served by those library branches in Lake City, Caraway, Lepanto, Marked Tree, Monette, Weiner and Brookland. Who knows what will happen with such a drastic millage decrease. The library system may have to close the branch libraries or reduce some services as a result.

This all accelerated from protests over a gay pride book display in the library last year and a transgender author’s visit there earlier. Every family has their own culture and religious beliefs. A family or parents’ belief system may not support transgender or gay lifestyles. That is to be respected. If families don’t share those beliefs, then they can choose to avoid that branch, they can monitor their child’s books, go with them to the library, but they should not lay the burden at the door of the neighborhood library to teach children in the way parents want them taught. Every child has to learn to survive in a big world. It is up to parents and/or guardians to pay attention to the books their child checks out, and teach the principles in which they approve, and to be more involved in their learning. Our schools know all too well what happens when parents lay the job of parenting at the doorstep. Cutting funding for a library because of a disagreement in the type of books available is setting a dangerous precedent. It is just the tip of the iceberg of what will happen when groups of people disagree in the future. It is the worst type of cancel culture and only teaches children that if people disagree, then cut their business or in this case, the library off at its knees.

We should not lessen the opportunity to learn for everyone, in other words, cut off our noses to spite our faces. There will come a time in the future when we will need a generation of free thinkers, problem finders and solvers and due to library cuts we might stunt that generation.

During a time when everyone seems to be screaming about their rights being taken away, decreasing the power of our libraries seems like we are moving in the wrong direction. Libraries should be learning hubs with unhindered access to materials, a place where critical thinking is enhanced and encouraged and not sheltered bunkers where learning is restricting to sets of approved books. That’s not learning, it is truly indoctrination; teaching someone to accept a set of beliefs without questioning them. Not everyone learns, thinks or believes the same things. And that is how it should be. It’s a freedom our country is founded on.

Equality has always reigned at the library. Information is free to everyone who enters. It’s funny how we tend to take for granted the most treasured and central aspect of our community; that is until something happens to endanger it. That something is happening now.