This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.

The Heart of our Town

As a frequent user of the library, I’m greatly concerned to hear of the Board of Selectman’s budget recommendation.

I believe in fiscally responsible governance, and if tumbleweeds rolled across the Scranton Memorial’s hallways and cobwebs filled its corners, I would see reason to make budgetary cuts. However, the library is crowded when I visit, and I visit often. Children learning to read, teens being tutored, neighbors reuniting, computer users, periodical browsers, and people hard at work, attending programs, or relaxing all constantly fill the library.

Even in the age of Google, the library is still the cultural hub of our neighborhood. To severely limit library access and programs—as the proposed cuts do—is to stifle the culture of Madison. In fact, the more fragmented our society becomes in the age of Google and social media, the more vital a physical community gathering place becomes. The Scranton Memorial Library is the heart of our town, and shouldn’t take such a large brunt of the cuts when it imposes costs of only 1.5 percent on the town’s budget.

Thomas Jefferson once said “books constitute capital.” I wonder about the quietly studying and tutored children I see when I go to visit the library. If the budget is cut further, where will they go when the library is closed early, or simply not open at all? It’s invaluable for them to be literally surrounded by all the knowledge of the world on which they can individually capitalize. You don’t get that learning at a Starbucks! An investment in the capital of books is an investment in our town’s children and their future.

I call on the Madison Board of Finance to keep our town’s culture and community whole, and reject the proposed, outsized cuts to the Scranton Memorial Library’s budget.

Joshua Garlick

Madison