Libraries Prove Not So Popular Among Voters
Many voters who went to the polls last week for the mid-terms were asked to vote on public libraries.
Of the 60 local library elections tracked by EveryLibrary across 22 states, 41 passed and 19 failed.
John Chrastka is Executive Director of EveryLibrary, which is the political action committee for libraries and is based in Chicago's western suburbs. He tells WBBM, "the old saying is everybody loves libraries, nobody wants to pay for them."
"Illinois," Chrastka said, "unfortunately did not pass very much across the state. Only two of seven measures that were on the ballot passed in Illinois."
One library victory did happen in west suburban Berkeley, which passed a bond to repair and renovate its public library, with Chrastka saying "that was a big deal...Berkeley used to be a big manufacturing town, now it's more of a bedroom community, it's a real big deal."
Chrastka says libraries are key to the goal of educators to give children access to one-thousand books before they start kindergarten. "If we're looking at a thousand books before kindergarten, as a goal, how does any family afford that without having a library providing 990 of them? It's the right way to do things as a community, to have that kind of access for pre-K and early childhood. It's the right way to go because somewhere in the neighborhood of 78% of all reading is done on a traditional book."
Despite living in "The Digital Age," libraries are more popular than ever. Analysts say 22-percent of all reading in the United States is accessed at libraries.
