news report #3

Megan Beverly
LIB 103
10/1/09
News Report #3

http://www.ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/news/pressreleases2009/june2009/olcfunding_ola.cfm
NEWSFor immediate releaseJune 23, 2009
“Ohio Library Council, libraries lead effort to save library funding”

The governor of Ohio has proposed to cut library budgets by thirty percent in the upcoming year. But, many people have a problem with this because libraries are crucial to the public at this time. This is because with the already twenty percent cut taking place this year, in 2010 and 2011 it will be a total cut of fifty percent. The Ohio Library Council and Ohio citizens hope to try and stop this from going through.
According to the OLC, these cuts will force libraries to close down and even force whole branches to be closed. This will be detrimental to Ohio citizens in so many different ways, they can not all be predicted. Also if branches do not have to close down, hours and pay will be cut drastically. It has been said that libraries are crucial to our economy making a turn around, but with these cuts it is very unlikely that they will stay open to help people in any way that they could.
Libraries and regular citizens are campaigning for these cuts to be stopped, and hopefully they will be. I think that it is ridiculous to think that any kind of business can survive on fiftypercent of what they are used to running on. Normal people usually could not live on half of what they are used to making, we cant expect libraries to be any different. When it comes down to it yes libraries are free services to people, but they still need money to survive. How can we expect children to grow up well educated when their libraries are being shut down, and what kind of message about education does that send?