Oregon: "Largest library closure in U.S."

Today's front page of the San Francisco Chronicle brings the news that Jackson County, Oregon is about to shutter its entire library system. (I looked for a mention of the story in The Oregonian, but couldn't find it.)

People are arguing about the root causes, but the net result is the same:

Now, not long after all 15 branches were rebuilt or remodeled, every one will be shuttered in what's being called the largest library shutdown in the United States. The crisis in southern Oregon can be traced not only to changing funding priorities on Capitol Hill, but also to crooked railroad deals in the Wild West, a spotted owl and a shrinking timber harvest.

This isn't a small wilderness outpost--Jackson County has a population of nearly 200,000, and is the home to the famous Oregon Shakespeare Festival. According to the article, the library system there has nearly 1.4 million items checked out per day. And now...

Struggling library systems have come close to extinction in Salinas, Merced County and Niagara Falls, N.Y., but they pulled back from the brink, said Leonard Kniffel, editor of American Libraries magazine.

Nothing, he said, compares to the scope and severity of the pending closure in Jackson County, where about 100 library employees will be laid off.

In November, Jackson County residents voted down a property tax levy that would have generated $9 million a year to keep the libraries open. It was the third time since 1984 that voters were asked to bolster the library budget, but the first time they said no.

"Back in November, the feds had not cut us off yet, and the possibility they'd continue to fund us was still there, so people didn't think the libraries were really going to close," said Margaret Jakubcin, a regional manager for the Jackson County Libraries.

Library supporters are trying again. They put an identical property tax levy on the upcoming May ballot. But in order to pass, 50 percent of the registered voters have to participate in the election, and a majority of them have to vote yes.

I can't imagine a metro area of 200,000 people bragging on its quality of life when it can't sustain a single library. Nor can I imagine such a place ever attracting businesses, homeowners, or families with children. How can you promote a town with its own Shakespeare Festival, but no public library where Shakespeare could be read?

Comments

[Lisa]

That's terrible. Apparently, all libraries will be closed in April, pending a vote in May on a tax levy to reopen them.

http://www.jcls.org/

[thedude]

Where are the Libertarians? Do they have any answers? Seems the populace is believing their retoric and voting down governement run programs. So its time they stepped up.

[retreadranger]

This sounds all too familiar. Thirty years ago, when I was working at Sequoia National Park, my wife was able to get a job at the tiny county library branch located in the Lodgepole visitor center. This was forty miles from anywhere, at 6,000 feet on the side of a mountain, and the little library was an over-sized boon to our remote community.

Along came California's tax reduction initiative, the infamous "Proposition 13" and POOF! went the library.

[Steve Woodward]

Actually, The Oregonian has run quite a few stories and photos about this over the past several months. The irony for the library system is that the ribbon was cut on the newest library just before it has to close.

[Kevin]

Thanks, Steve - I felt certain they had to cover it, but I had missed that story and couldn't find it searching the archives.

Keeping the library open by whatever means would seem a lot less expensive than the terrible P.R. that would come from being known as "the city without a library."