Can your read this sentence? If so, we have teachers and public libraries to thank – for our literacy and intellectual development, along with parents who also respected education and libraries.
We in southwest La Plata County who support the Sunnyside and Fort Lewis Mesa communities are being asked to pay a little bit to keep those library sites operational.
There is simply no substitute for the stunning and incomparable value of a library: it holds the wealth of civilization in books about art, politics, history, literature, architecture, science, music, religion and cultures from across the globe.
These satellite sites also offer computer services that help people find jobs and careers, connect with faraway friends and family, and allow our rural neighbors to take care of business without a long, expensive trip into town.
Libraries are the lifeblood of America and especially for neighbors who sometimes live far from one another and depend on the library to bring them together.
Most of us will pay about $30 a year, if that, to keep our libraries open.
In this time when knowledge and facts are questioned, the worth of the library is more essential than ever.
Jorge Luis Borges said it best in 1941: “I am perhaps misled by old age and fear, but I suspect that the human species ... teeters at the verge of extinction, yet the library – enlightened, solitary, infinite, perfectly unmoving, armed with precious volumes, pointless, incorruptible, and secret – will endure.” But only if we vote to fund it.
Stephanie Moran
Durango
