Close libraries, diminish us

Walter Fox

is a Philadelphia writer

In 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote to a friend, "Were it left for me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter."

Often quoted as proof of Jefferson's commitment to press freedom, this statement offers a more profound observation: A democratic society cannot survive without an informed citizenry. Jefferson underscored this view in his next sentence: "But I should mean that every man should receive those papers, and be capable of reading them."

Were Jefferson to revisit Philadelphia today, he might be tempted to update his remarks by including libraries along with newspapers, because this great champion of a free marketplace of ideas would be the first to condemn a government act that restricts citizens' access to information.

Philadelphia faces a fiscal crisis of monumental proportions, and serious efforts must be made to trim expenditures. But there is a qualitative difference between cutting back on snow-plowing and closing libraries. One inconveniences citizens; the other diminishes their ability to govern themselves.

While Mayor Nutter would deny that the decision to close libraries was anything more than a budgetary measure, the effect is tantamount to deciding which citizens have access to information and which do not. It is as much an affront to democratic principles as circulating newspapers only in areas where residents can afford the products advertised.

Both reverse a long-standing American trend: the democratization of information. Its milestones have included the appearance of the "penny press" in the 1830s and the expansion of the neighborhood library system at the end of that century.

The implication is that the governing process henceforth will be in the hands not of all citizens, but of an elite who can afford their own personal computers and other big-ticket information technologies.

Libraries, like newspapers, have long served as continuing-education systems for those whose thirst for knowledge exceeds their means. Generations of immigrants and working-class Americans whose financial straits excluded them from university lecture halls educated themselves in the reading rooms of public libraries.

For retired senior citizens, libraries are places where they can maintain an active connection to the community and the wider world. For city schools without libraries - sadly, about half of them - the local Free Library branch fills the gap. For many of the city's young people, the local library is a cultural oasis amid abandoned housing, drug trafficking and gang warfare. They may use the library to read newspapers and magazines, or to access the Internet.

If the mayor and City Council really want to cut the fat out of the city's budget, there are still plenty of places left to do it. They could end the real estate tax-abatement program for buyers of new homes and luxury condominiums. They could scale down the Fourth of July celebration and reduce the number of fireworks displays. They could even require Council members to use their own cars for transportation.

All of these measures, while causing no small amount of disappointment or inconvenience for the people affected, would save considerable sums of money.

But closing libraries is another matter. Rather than cutting fat out of the budget, it cuts the heart out of the democratic process.