HOUSTON – Seventy-five-year old Carolyn Rolsten is a life-long library user.
“I started in 1940,” Rolsten said. “My mother read to us when we were little all the time. That was part of quiet time. That was also during the summer when we were suppose to be inside, and being quiet and not getting too warm because of concern of polio.”
Rolsten sat in front of a very modern computer in the very modern McGovern Stella Link library, a Houston public library, and recalled her childhood experiences.
“Our librarian was very, very protective of her books,” she said. “At the time we thought…(pause). It was almost (like) were we suppose to take them out? At the time, we couldn’t replace many books because that was during World War 2, and there wasn’t the ability to do much. Funding wasn’t there.”
Seventy years later, funding is still an issue.
Last year, Houston’s 42 public libraries saw their budgets slashed. As a result, hours were also cut.
“I used to use the (library) downtown on Friday, and they closed it on Friday,” said Levon Campbell.
Faced with a $130 million shortfall, city leaders are once again thinking about slashing library funding, this time by more than 27 percent.
“I think it sends a message to the kids when they see the city government and government at large (and the) first cuts they want to make is to the library,” said Scott Wagner.
Leon also remembered visiting the library when he was a kid.
“When you take it away from the community, the kids aren’t going to have (a place) to go after school,” he said. “I mean, you cut back the hours. This library is closed on Saturday. What (are) you gonna do? Hang out at the mall or come here and study?”
If you think libraries are a thing of the past, think again.
In Houston, they are the biggest provider of free internet access. They get more than 5 million visits every year. And while funding remains an issue, a lot has changed since Rolsten was a kid.
“First of all, the librarians were (long pause). We considered them to be old ladies. I mean they were like 50, 60,” she said. “The Dewey Decimal System (was) very important. (There was a ) card catalog, and they had these wooden boxes about yay long. You could take out, and I remember somebody dropping one, one day. God help everybody that was around, and this lady said ‘Do you know how long it’s gonna take to get that back in order’?”
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