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This blog entry from http://librarydust.typepad.com/library_dust/ is dated October 9, 2004.

Today’s mail included my sample ballot for the November elections. I write ‘elections’ because there are of course many other issues to be resolved than the question of who will be President. One of the items on the ballot is District Measure ‘B,’ which asks the residents of this unincorporated neighborhood,

Shall the Altadena Library District be authorized to continue to levy a special per parcel tax annually for ten years to replace library funding lost due to the elimination of the Special District Augmentation Fund?

The analysis of the measure provided by the County Counsel notes that the measure, if passed by a two-thirds majority, would fund library services and facilities; the special tax would amount to $40.63 per single family residence parcel, $27.85 per apartment unit and so forth. The tax would continue for ten years. There is an argument in favor of the tax whose text would be familiar to anyone involved in library fundraising: they simply need the money to continue operations, even in the somewhat diminished fashion our two-library system had become accustomed to. The measure is described as a continuation of a previous assessment with an adjustment for inflation and improved services.

There is no rebuttal to the argument in favor. Last time around the funding measure passed easily. In my travels around town I generally try to put in a plug for Measure ‘B.’ The responses I hear are interesting and suggest important things about the perception of public libraries.

Supporters of the initiative are of two types: a few who know something about their library and a far greater proportion who do not. I would put the ratio at about two to one in favor of the less-informed. This is a powerful but not surprising statement of support for libraries in general—that they would be so well thought of that folks who know little or nothing about the local facility would nevertheless be willing to support a tax increase to fund the operation. These folks generally tell me that they approve of any effort to support the public library, which they tend to equate with education, culture and the better things of life; they see the place as a bulwark against delinquency, ignorance and prejudice and are willing to support that even if they have no real connection to the place—I find few supporters who regularly use the library; I have spoken to quite a few who know nothing more than that its main location is on a particular street. Taken in total these folks resemble very much the sort of folks who consider themselves Catholic but seldom attend Mass.

In my travels I have encountered a few who thought the library tax was a bad idea. These folks sort out into two categories: the sort of person who believes that he shouldn’t have to pay for a street lamp that isn’t in front of his house, much less a library that he doesn’t use, and a bunch who believe that our particular library is a waste of money.

If you give any thought to these responses you discover something unsettling: that the opponents have a far greater command of facts than supporters do. The general anti-tax fellow will bend you backward with figures about how he is being taxed into the grave or out of the state; he makes an argument for pay-as-you-go facilities and assures you that he has nothing against libraries, only paying for the ones he doesn’t use, or paying for more use than he enjoys.

Nor are the “waste of money” folks mere complainers: in fact their arguments are often models of clarity. Their essence is as follows:

The adjacent city has a library system with ten branches. The County of Los Angeles operates a library system with 84 branches, some quite close, all of which may be used by the residents of Altadena. The City of Los Angeles’ large system, with over sixty scattered branches, is also available for use, as are many other libraries in the area. In fact, there are quite a few libraries within a short drive or bus ride of Altadena, many quite a bit better equipped than our own two branches. Why then should we have (and more to the point, pay for) a library in this community?

Some of these people are library users; some think highly of the institution. I have heard them say, “Why don’t they put the Altadena library in the County system, save some money and improve service?” That is no anti-government screamer talking, but someone who has taken stock of circumstances and resources.

And so the situation stands as follows: Our local library depends for its support on a loyal base of folks whose generosity arises from a conception of the library as an elevating institution while their outnumbered opponents view the thing either as one of many wasteful expenditures or more specifically as a superfluity.

The upshot is this: that our local library exists because of the image that the institution projects rather than from any cold evaluation of facts. It is the capital ‘L’ library that they love, and from that comes the consent to tax for the facilities in the very midst other, larger library systems. There is something very comforting about this, and something vaguely disturbing.

This situation reflects a kind of thinking that is uniquely American. We imagine ourselves as a people with limitless choices and practically endless resources. The library is such a good thing, we reason, that every political subdivision ought to have one, no matter if they sit cheek-by-jowl against one another. In fact we do have the money to do such things, and certainly the will, as our will is expressed. And so there they are: our libraries—born of our imagination, children of our dreams, scraping by on regular requests for additional money, beloved prizes of our communities, ever skating on thin ice.

Trends and Portents

Over the past few years California’s libraries have fared rather well at the polls. The last election cycle was different and may have begun a trend in the opposite direction. Residents in the southern California communities of Walnut, Bradbury, Montebello, Bell, Avalon, La Puente, Carson, Gardena, San Fernando, Huntington Park, South Gate and Pico Rivera rejected library taxes in the March election. In total, twelve of twelve measures to support library the services of the Los Angeles County Public library went down to defeat. [In the north of the state the City of Oakland had a different result, passing a library bond measure by 77%.] More interesting to library supporters was the fact that the levels of voter support for these measures were inversely related to income in the affected communities. In other words, the places with more money wished to spend less of it, while those with less wished to put out more of their limited income for library services.

The election of last March was different from others in recent history, and perhaps unique in that the main issue on the ballot was the removal of a sitting governor by recall; this in itself may have been responsible for much of the negative response to the library propositions, but certainly it doesn’t explain away the fact that a third of these communities not only did not muster two-thirds support required, but even failed to turn out simple majorities in support of the County library.

No less an authority than Kevin Starr, State Librarian Emeritus of California, has suggested that we are experiencing a major change in the perception of the voting community, a refusal to accept without question that certain functions of government are worthy of their cost in tax dollars, a “timeout” from the pledge to accept the burden of taxation for traditional services. If this is true, even in the short run, it may work hard changes on the arrangements of local libraries, especially smaller systems like the one here where I live. It may mean hard comparisons, harder questions and tough answers that libraries have not heard from their public. The era of unquestioning support may be ending in this part of the country.

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