The state of Pennsylvania has just shown the crushing power of its apathy in the most horrifying way: funding has been cut so drastically to our public libraries to curb budget concerns that they are now shutting down by the handful. It didn't kill them outright, just let them die--first were smaller ones over the summer, though Allentown took us by surprise. And now... now one much bigger has washed up on the shore, choking for air: the Free Public Library of Philadelphia.
Here in Pennsylvania, it seems that we have finally seen the wretched beast of our twisted priorities rear up and show its hideous face. And scrawled across its forehead, carved in ragged, bloody letters are these words:
"We deeply regret to inform you that without the necessary budgetary legislation by the State Legislature in Harrisburg, the City of Philadelphia will not have the funds to operate our neighborhood branch libraries, regional libraries, or the Parkway Central Library after October 2, 2009."
Patrons of the Free Library of Philadelphia, your city has cried wolf for the last time. The Pennsylvania state government has been threatening to cut back library funding to the point of closing for a decade or more, slowly inching the budget back further and further each year on each of the state's libraries, and now, just less than a month from today, the deed will be done. You didn't think it was possible; how could you? For them to shut down libraries? It was just a scare tactic, a scapegoat for "budget concerns" that they liked to kick around to make sure you knew they were talkin' business. And yet, now all that stands between the closing of the FLP in a month (and inevitably, tens if not hundreds more libraries around the state in the many months to come) is the State Legislature and their willingness to pass a funding legislation. They've got two weeks.
Good luck getting money piped down through the works in the current political climate. It's fucking monsoon season right now. With all the fear of our money going to such horrible socialist ideas as keeping each other healthy and safe and alive, do libraries really stand a chance? If we can't even come to a common ground on the worth of the lives of other human beings, what the fuck do we need books for? Reading is for liberals and pussies! Not to mention after-school programs, daycare and senior centers, computer courses and GED and ESL classes! ESL!! If you can't speak American, then you can't READ it either, so what are you doin' in our libraries anyway? Am I right??
Reading down through the list of canceled programs that the closing of the FLP really brings to light how much libraries do for a community, and seeing the city of Philadelphia be forced to close down its twenty-four branches makes my heart break and my blood boil. My brother works as a cameraman for the Pennsylvania Cable Network, and has covered these budget hearings in Harrisburg and said they are the most depressing things he has ever seen. There is no debating at them; the two sides stand up, give their piece, don't listen to a word the other side is proposing, and sits back down. The budget is already months overdue and may well continue to sit until the end of this year. But by then, it won't matter what happens. The Free Library of Philadelphia will have closed and be remembered as nothing more than a footnote to the debate, a sad but necessary casualty to the cost of cutting back and scaling down.