LIBRARY MATTERS COLUMN

contributed article
Published: May 1, 2008

Are books passé? Have library stacks been outpaced by memory sticks?
Some would say our libraries are obsolete, a quaint vestige of our past. After all, with Google and Wikipedia do people still need the library? If you are thinking this, then think again. Libraries are now more important than ever.
The Jefferson-Madison Regional Library is enjoying a golden age in which we are flourishing not only within the physical confines of bricks and mortar, steel and glass, but also in the continuously expanding internet universe.
Rather than threatening our libraries, the age of technology has only complemented our services and expanded our reach. The online catalog allows you to ask a question when it occurs to you even if the library is closed.
But libraries are more than books and information. Libraries are about community.
They provide us with a physical gathering place, a crossroads for people of all ages, ethnicities and economic means, complete with trained information professionals - librarians - assisting with finding and interpreting information both onsite and online. The Greene County Library meeting room is freely available for public meetings.
Libraries are also leading the way in forging creative public-private charitable partnerships with a new generation of supporters like the Bill and Melinda Gates Library Foundation, this year celebrating 10 years of major financial support for computer equipment, software and training at our nation’s libraries. These efforts aren’t simply charitable. Education and literacy are essential to staying competitive in a global society. Recent studies indicate we’ve got some serious distance to travel.
More than eight million American children, grades 4-12, struggle to read, write and comprehend on the most basic levels, according to federal studies, and only three out of 10 eighth-graders are reading at or above grade level according to the National Center for Education Statistics. In Virginia, almost 1/5 of the population over 25 does not have a high school diploma.
Society as a whole pays, according to the National Governor’s Association, whose “Reading to Achieve” report indicates that deficits in basic literacy skills drain as much as $16 million annually from businesses, universities and under-educated workers themselves in lost productivity and other costs.
Libraries are part of the solution. The kids and teen reading programs at the Greene Public Library help foster an early love of reading and an appreciation of the importance of books in your life. For many who don’t have computers at home, the computer and internet access at the library can help students and adults do their word processing, and access the worldwide web.
Libraries are more relevant than ever, providing information 24/7 with Online Databases and selected Internet Links by subject. The library’s resources are providing a bridge to the world beyond for Greene’s citizens. And, of course, admission is free.
It’s democracy in action. There’s nothing obsolete about that