By Linda Stamato
The Morristown & Morris Township Library is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its Willis wing this year, a celebration that offers another opportunity to pledge allegiance to the belief in public libraries and to acknowledge our own, very special, public library’s place among the nation’s valued collection.
The building on South Street builds on a tradition that started soon after the Revolutionary War. In the years since, it has faced many challenges—not least, fires and construction failures—and, depending upon the vagaries of the age, there were others.
Now, free public libraries–and free access to books and all that libraries provide to our communities–are endangered. In nearly every state they are experiencing budget cuts.
In New Jersey, where property revaluations have reduced the tax base in municipalities, local support for public libraries has declined. The current governor cut funds to public libraries across the board for several years, even boasting at times that the “climate” had improved sufficiently to warrant a tax cut! Well, we aren’t hearing much about tax cuts any longer!
Many libraries across the country have reduced hours and services; others have sold off books. Some libraries have merged. Others, in desperation—or, joining the anti-government services crowd–have privatized. Still others are contemplating a fee-based approach to meet their bottom-line challenges.
These are disturbing trends. They must be resisted!
Keith Michal Fiels, a former head of the state library system in Massachusetts, and author of Why We Need Public Libraries, More Than Ever, points out that every national survey shows citizens consider public libraries the most effectively run of all municipal services.
Public libraries are living spaces, constantly reinventing themselves to meet new needs and purposes even as they save and keep secure what essentially remains the same–providing a free, accessible haven for those who cherish books.
I tried to capture in an earlier essay just what the public library means to me:
“For Robert Frost, home was the place ‘where, when you have to go, they have to take you in.’ For me, the library is the place that wants to take you in—where the weary find rest and the restless find stimulation; where ideas come alive, discoveries are made, where imaginations take flight; and, too, where jobs are located, prices determined, trips planned, languages learned; where friends gather and strangers meet.”
I wrote that ode—and dedicate this column–to the free public library, to the place where the community creates its home.
Celebrating the treasure that is the Morristown & Morris Township Library is something we ought to be doing every year, not just every 100 years! And we should celebrate the fact that it is a free service, willingly supported by the taxpayers of our communities. We need to join with Fiels and the people who support free public libraries everywhere to acknowledge this essential truth:
“Sure, the library is an old fashioned concept. So is democracy. So is equal opportunity.”
Morristown resident Linda Stamato teaches in the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and co-direct its Center for Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at Rutgers University.
In New Jersey, it seems to be more and more about haves, and not have not enough.
Some towns have very high property values, along with high property taxes. Common sense would dictate sharing and merging of more public services. Like learning and educational resources. But so far not much happening with that. “Home rule” is still the order of the day.
So maybe some solutions could be:
1.Merge library services with the local public school budget? They have the money and could partner
with a building that is already staffed and up and running.
2. Let a tax exempt organization like the Mayo Center for the Arts, donate a small % from a portion of educational shows to the library. The town helped them and allowed them to be tax exempt ,so why not help out?
3.Partner with the County library. Maybe an idea who’s time has come?
If you can see the column at this link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/books/philip-roth-newark-public-library.html?_r=0
You’ll see that Philip Roth, too, loves libraries. He’s donating his entire book collection–3,500 books–to the Newark Public Library which he considered “my other Newark home” when he was a college student seeking a refuge of learning and solitude. Now, the famed author credits his life in the library for inspiring him to write. We all have to be grateful for that library!!
I have library cards for the Morris County, Montclair, Bloomfield, and Summit libraries and visit them all regularly. But the Library of Morristown and Morris Township has the friendliest staff of all, and easily the best architecture!
It’s quite remarkable but, on reflection, not surprising that people have such fond and significant memories of their contacts with their own public libraries. I had a brief exchange with Marge Brady who also commented (above) but I was so moved by what she had to say that I’m including more of her words here:
“Our library is the best. As an immigrant’s child, in a home without books–all our books
were in German and my dad destroyed them during the Nazi “witch hunts.” My Brownie leader took me to a library that was a block from my home and I was immediately hooked. At first there was a limit on how many books one could take out–four books a week–but after awhile the librarian let me take out as many as eight! As an only child and often at home sick, I was never lonely again and to this day I rarely go anywhere without something to read.”
I have been the beneficiary of public libraries since I took out my first library card at the age of 7, and am very glad to live in a community and county where the services offered by public libraries are so comprehensive. I feel a deep sense of appreciation every time I walk through the doors of our town and county libraries and always find more than enough of interest to spend days there instead of minutes or hours. I’m glad for this ode, shared with us by Ms. Stamato, to the Morristown and Township Library which has nurtured my — and our family’s — mind and spirit, for the 40 years we have lived here.
How fortunate we are to have this treasure in Morristown, My brownie leader introduced an immigrant child from a book less home to a public library, just a block from her home, when she was six and her life changed forever for the better. Bravo, Linda. Bravo, The joint Public Library of Morristown and Morris Township.