The reading area of my local Cuyahoga County Public Library branch is enhanced by a water fountain. As I write within the cocoon of that background sound, the library is busy. Books are reshelved, labels are made for items being held, materials are located by library staff, and the automated checkout goes smoothly. Every so often, a patron asks the librarian a question. Sometimes children’s voices are heard during reading time. But mostly, as I write, the flowing water keeps me focused.
We know libraries as places to find magazines, books, reference materials, newspapers, the big wide world on the internet, music and movies. I love the filled shelves of books, but in this confusing and hurried world, libraries can be a place of refuge. Like my studio at home, where floor-to-ceiling books line one wall, I feel my stress lessen when books surround me.
When our local libraries asked their patrons to tell state representatives to keep funding for Ohio libraries at its current levels and to include stories about why, I didn’t know which story to tell. Recent memories of browsing the fiction section of the beautiful main branch of the Cleveland Public Library mingled with the excitement I felt while embraced by the vast number of books housed in the thirteen floors of Kent State University’s library where I worked while in college. I probably took up all the space in that small box on the submission page when I answered the call to advocate.
On April 8, delegations of library staff met with legislators in the House and Senate to advocate for continued funding for Ohio’s libraries. The Cleveland Public Library’s thank-you email read, “Thank you to each and every one of you who contacted your representatives and for speaking up on behalf of Cleveland Public Library. Your efforts paid off. Over 9,000 messages were sent. Your stories made a difference. Our voices were heard, and progress was made. The Ohio House changed their budget bill.” Many of us love our libraries.
Libraries across the nation are at risk. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) gutted the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) when it laid off almost all the IMLS staff. The American Library Association, in a recent press release, stated that “The elimination of federal funding for public libraries will be felt in every community across the country, and particularly in rural areas. Public libraries provide people with job skills training, entrepreneurship support, homeschooling and education materials, and access to food services that are at risk without federal funding.” Afterschool meals, internet access, education kits, GED preparation, and after-school tutoring are provided with IMLS funds.
After spending a morning at a Cuyahoga County Public Library branch, one of our daughters reached out in a family text to say that the loss of libraries would be a major blow to their lives. The library’s influence has been crucial to her five-year-old daughter’s education and kindergarten readiness. Many of the programs I’ve attended with my granddaughters have included hands-on tactile activities, crafts, and opportunities to write and tell their own stories around a central theme taken from an award-winning book that was read to them. Ohio’s children need these programs.
Did you know that only 30% of Americans read above a 10-year-old’s level? In a recent New York Times opinion titled “Producing Something This Stupid Is the Achievement of a Lifetime,” David Brooks began his piece with “You might have seen the various data points suggesting that Americans are losing their ability to reason.” He quoted the retired general Jim Mattis and Bing West, who wrote in Call Sign Chaos, “If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you.” While Brooks was specifically focused on Trump’s tariffs, his point is that our literacy decline “is the achievement of a lifetime—relying on decades of incuriosity, decades of not cracking a book, decades of being impervious to evidence.” Illiteracy makes for poor government today.
Libraries enhance our communities and the relationship between readers and writers. I recently attended an author talk at Rocky River Public Library as part of the 2025 Cleveland Humanities Festival: Appetite, which is coordinated by the Baker-Nord Institute for Humanities of Case Western Reserve University. Juliet Grimes talked about her own Italian immigrant family and the story that inspired her book The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia. At the evening’s program, patrons were served the delicious Italian food described in the book and given the opportunity to purchase a book from a local bookstore. The mostly female group talked about their travels to Italy, shared their own food memories, and asked questions to deepen their understanding of the book. It was a valuable evening.
Ohio is known for award-winning and innovative libraries. That’s in part due to the people who love them. Over 9,000 people sent emails to their state representatives and shared their stories. Thanks to that citizen response, the House of Representatives made changes that give our libraries a reprieve. But now the state Senate, then a Senate-House conference committee, are debating Ohio’s proposed 2025-27 state budget (House Bill 96) and must be signed by June 30. We still need to advocate for our libraries.
Please reach out to your state senators and ask them to keep support of our esteemed libraries at levels where it’s historically been. Do it because you love libraries, you love learning, and you care about the future of our children and our country.
One Response to “Libraries Are Our Connection—Let’s Support Them By Claudia J. Taller”
janet ghiandoni
Please save our libraries. This country was based on a well-educated electorate…is that something you ever learned in school?