Troy public library needs your help - shutdown imminent!

Steamed Punk sez, "The Troy, Michigan Public Library will close unless the citizens pass a dedicated millage. Normally this would be no big deal, here in Troy there is a well financed group that ruthlessly undermines the efforts of library supporters. Forty years ago Isaac Asimov, E. B. White and other supported the newly opened library with letters to the kids encouraging them to make the most of the library. With your help the people of Troy can enjoy the library as Asimov, Suess, and other intended for years to come!"

Vote Yes - Aug 2 (Thanks, Steamed Punk!)

Isaac Asimov's letter to the future patrons of a new library ...

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

More at Boing Boing

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The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

moniker42

@ john_d : That may be true to an extent but it is more important every day not to overly rely on the internet as a source of information particularly in an age of government and social repression and censorship. It is a dangerous social convention. I for one lament the decline in both libraries and bookstores, slow information intake and the homogenization of information. I may not be a Luddite but it would be nice to have the option.
ConWrite

Good News! The world must be nearing perfection. Everyone now has money for a computer and a monthly internet bill. Why else would libraries no longer need to exist?
Anonymous

I live and vote in this district. This battle has been going on for a while now. This library is a highly used resource but the opposition is very well financed and it is in the middle of a fairly conservative, anti-government district. This will be extremely tragic if they succeed in killing this amazing resource to the community.
RHK

I’m an internet connected, mobile person who uses my local public library on a regular basis. DVD rentals, e-book downloads, wi-fi access and the ability to have any book ordered and held for me from the comfort of my computer – even delivered to my home for a small fee.

If this is socialism, then some people ought to give it a second look.
Greg323

Shutting down a public library.

Christ, what a bunch of assholes. I guess the city of Troy can’t see the lasting damage that will do.

Thanks for the heads-up Cory. I just sent in a $10 donation.
- steamed punk
  
  Thank you very much, Greg323.
  
  The challenge is intensity. Most people who support the library are on a 3 or 4 out of ten in intensity. The “assholes” as you call them have theirs turned up to 11. They will do anything, say anything to avoid paying taxes.
  
  Fortunately there are a few at the vanguard who do our best to combat their tactics. As time goes on we are able to convince others of the distorted nature of our opposition. Sadly most people are just not paying that much attention.
  
  They forget the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
chgoliz

Whatever the details for the rest of it, this concept

here in Troy there is a well financed group that ruthlessly undermines the efforts of library supporters

encapsulates what is wrong with the US.
Thorzdad

Ah, America. Where ignorance is determined to be more cost-effective.
GuidoDavid

Typo on Isaac Asmov.

And this is a a comment about an essay that he wrote about the perfect storytelling gadget:
http://www.jamierubin.net/2011/07/13/the-golden-age-of-books-revisiting-the-ancient-and-the-ultimate/

Sadly, can’t find that great essay online.
- tempo
  
  Isaac Asimov is correct.
  - GuidoDavid
    
    In the post is written “Issac”
mccrum

I was curious as to what kind of heathens would be against libraries and this group seems to be anti-tax libertarians. I imagine they’ll be after the fire department after they clean up this portion of town. I’m surprised at the amount of venom being brought against a public library, it’s kind of terrifying.
http://keeptroystrong.blogspot.com/2010/11/politicians-fighting-against-troy_13.html

They look like they’re looking for only $1200 in the next day, I chipped in, you should too.
- steamed punk
  
  I’ll miss you most off all, Scarecrow!
  
  I mean thank you most of all, mccrum. I greatly appreciate your research and reply on our behalf. keeptroystrong is a great blog that has done more work than anyone exposing the dirty tricks, lies, and bad faith arguments they have made over the years. Then you contributed, then you encouraged others that is like the money bomb Trifecta.
Anonymous

I use the Troy Public Library. The Tea Party is huge in our town. They don’t need (or want) any books. Have you seen their misspelled, grammatically incorrect signage? As I have friends who work at the library I’ve heard that folks have called wanting lists of all of the anti-Christian books that the library owns. Seriously!?! They also hate paying taxes, hence the un-snow-plowed roads we were plagued with this Michigan winter as the city had no money to plow. Please help us. Sanity is in limited supply in my town.
Jupiter12

The opposition group turned out to be a hoax:

http://www.citizen-times.com/article/C4/20110716/NEWS03/110716013/Group-behind-controversial-signs-said-aim-save-Troy-library

The phony opposition campaign was created to stir up support for the library. Same thing happened in our city last year when the library vote was brought up. Tongue-in-cheek signs appeared that said “Vote No for the Liebarry”.
- mccrum
  
  No, the campaign to create signs calling for a book burning turns out to be a hoax, not the group. From the article:
  
  ‘â€œItâ€™s dirty tactics,â€ said Debbie DeBacker, a 32-year resident. â€œWe can disagree, but when the pro-tax side plays dirty, theyâ€™re just creating more division in our city.â€
  
  DeBacker cofounded Troy Citizens United, a group that for years has opposed Troy millage proposals. DeBacker said the rash of disturbing signs and a Facebook page depicting a burning book were a hoax aimed at offending complacent voters and getting them to vote for the millage.’
  
  Troy Citizens United is a real group actually opposed to increasing taxes to pay for things that civilization requires, like libraries, roads or firehouses.
  - Jupiter12
    
    Thanks for the clarification. I mistakenly considered the book burning group the news item here because I figured any call to add or increase taxes will have opponents regardless of the issue. I hope the Troy library stays open. My wife and I use our library all the time, especially since we made the decision to get rid of our TV a couple years ago.
  - steamed punk
    
    mccrum is correct. The book burning party was a sad joke, TCU is just sad because they fight against all the things that make a community a great place to live.
    
    Thanks for clarifying, mccrum.
    
    Thanks so much for posting Cory! I am not worthy, but out library is as are the people who use it.
    - SuperGauntlet
      
      The book burning party was SATIRE, poking fun at the idiots who actually believe that.
      - steamed punk
        
        I said they were jokers didn’t I?
  - steamed punk
    
    Sadly DebBacker is as wrong about this as she is about almost everything else she talks about. The pro-library folks have no knowledge of what they are, and are nearly universal in their opposition to their approach.
    
    It is a bit ironic, as few know more about “creating division in our city” than she does.
  - SuperGauntlet
    
    It wasn’t a hoax. It was satire. Theres a rather large difference.
- Jackasimov
  
  Thanks for that. I was wondering.
  
  You can’t just spout off “well financed group that ruthlessly undermines the efforts of library supporters” without some source to back it up. So, Steamed Punk, you cried wolf one too many times. I will now not support your efforts. For all I know Troy’s library is a haven for vagrants and child-molesters with weekly Klan meetings. Prove me wrong or tear it down!
  - steamed punk
    
    I wish those jokers were those of which I speak. They who shall not be named, actually put 3 extra millages on the ballot the last time around simply so that could run against the combined 4 tax increases.
    
    Here is the metrotimes article describing those efforts:
    
    http://metrotimes.com/news/book-battle-1.1054507
    
    and one important excerpt:
    
    So, why are so many similar proposals on the ballot? We’ve grown accustomed to seeing dirty tricks in political contests, but it’s not often that underhanded tactics are used in something as straightforward as a vote to save something like a library. But that’s exactly what some are saying has happened here.
    
    Phillip Kwik, the head of the library’s public services department, says these other proposals are not an effort to help the library but to confuse voters. Friends of the Troy Public Library’s Hendrickson has been quoted in the press calling the three competing proposals “bogus.”
  - steamed punk
    
    Well you were proven wrong, I believe. I have cried wolf, cuz there is a flippin wolf. A wolf who has already cost us one effort to save our library at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars for the effort.
    
    So are you going to come and help chase the wolf away, or just complain?
    
    And you know what if the Klan wanted to meet in our library I wouldn’t like it, but I wouldn’t object to it either. Free speech can be a pill sometimes.
    
    I for one welcome vagrants into our library as long as they use it properly. They are people too, you know. Libraries in Philly, I believe, have some effective programs at services for homeless people.
coldbrewski

It’s frustrating that groups always have to target things like libraries, etc. I do have one question though, on the save troy website, they show the salaries and I think their point is that these are normal. Really? 191k for a Park and Rec Director. Some of those salaries seem awfully high if I’m reading them right. It says wages and when you add on benefits the package is very lucrative.
RenaldoSugarbush

Incredible story.
Illiterate savages have too much power in the US, I hope the rational people can take their country back.
- steamed punk
  
  Thanks, we are trying.
Anonymous

No, the opposition group isn’t a hoax. Those signs are tongue-in-cheek, but that article directly quotes the cofounder of Troy Citizens United, who are apparently opposed to any millage proposals whatsoever.

The signs were apparently made by some guy in Detroit, though.
chgoliz

Why does every slacker assume that other people are just as lazy?

Just made my donation too. Please come back to give us a follow-up, Mr. Kwik.
jysf

Thanks Cory for posting this! It is sad and scary that so many of our public institutions are under attack. Part of the reasons that Troy is a nice and prosperous community is the great public resources like schools and the library. I just donated too, good luck Steamed Punk! Go Little Brother!
- steamed punk
  
  Thank you very much, jysf. Another reason Troy is great is their had the wisdom of those who came before to invest in the future of their children. That and the people who live there now grew up with great mentors.
arbitraryaardvark

Every Michigan city right now is facing budget constraints.
One ploy I have seen repeatedly when citizens start to object to being overtaxed, is that the authorities will threaten to close the library.
I am a fan of libraries. I grew up reading Asimov and every other science fiction writer on two shelves of SF in my town’s library when i was 13-14. I read “I, Asimov” last week after dumpster diving it; mostly I just read stuff online these days.
Tax dollars are fungible. If taxes are raised “for the library” that frees up other tax dollars for, for example, putting black teenagers in jail for having pot, or paving contracts so that contractors can kick back campaign donations, or sinecures for the well-connected, and so forth. What boing-boing could do instead of blindly supporting a tax increase is to open-source a close look at the troy budget,and see if there is other stuff that could be cut to fund the library, at at least some miminal level. I have worked as a librarian. 90% of what the patrons want is for the building to be open and the front desk staffed. But 90% of the staff budget goes to people with MLS’s in the back rooms doing whatever it is they do. Half of that could be cut back until the local economy picks back up, without harming the basic function of the library – a big building with lots of books.
- TheMadLibrarian
  
  I don’t know for which library you worked, but in our library, about the only time any staff is idle is when they are on break. Our librarians help people find books within the library system, assist them on the Internet terminals, and in many other ways. Our circulation staff checks books in and out. Our processing staff gets materials ready for people to borrow and fixes damaged things. Our student helpers put materials away. Our janitor keeps the facility clean and pleasant to use. If you don’t know what your librarian is doing, only that “half could be cut back”, I doubt you’ve worked in a library recently.
- steamed punk
  
  You are right in some ways but wrong on the most important one: taxes are fungible, or at least this one ain’t.
  
  This tax is a dedicated millage for the library. Other monies will are fungible, but this is not.
  
  100% of residents taxes will directly to the library.
- Anonymous
  
  “90% of what the patrons want is for the building to be open and the front desk staffed. But 90% of the staff budget goes to people with MLS’s in the back rooms doing whatever it is they do.”
  
  Good point. I’ve often thought the same thing about airlines. I mean 90% of what the passengers want is for a plane to be in the air and someone to serve them a diet Coke. But 90% of the staff budget goes for the people to engineer and build the plane, the people to maintain it, the people to handle the luggage, the people to run the air traffic control system, the people to book the tickets, the people to run the computer systems, etc. You know, the people in the back room with MS’s doing whatever it is they do. Half of that could be cut back until the economy picks back up, without harming the basic function of the airline – driving a bus in the sky.
  
  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be over here in my back room doing crossword puzzles or something.
aynrandspenismighty

Maybe they should just erect toll-boths on every street corner and a $100.00 charge per 911 dialing. Let’s see how these proto-anarchist types enjoy their brave new world.
Caroline

I have kicked them $10. Follow the link and give them a few bucks if you can.

Libraries are about public access to information. Some of that information is in paper form, as books, magazines, and newspapers. Some is in digital form on physical media in the library, or sitting on a server somewhere.

My public library provides free wi-fi for those who have their own laptops to bring, and computer access for those who don’t. And yes, there are in fact many people who can’t afford to buy a computer or pay for internet access at home. The library computer stations are always full.

Even for people like me who can afford a home computer and internet access, the public library provides information access I wouldn’t otherwise have. I can sit at home, enter my library card number on their website, and immediately gain access to a bunch of full-text databases. Like, when I was buying a car, I was able to search Consumer Reports for their most recent used-car reviews. Without having to pay a subscription fee.

And let’s talk about books. The public library is the ultimate book-sharing service. I go through novels like candy, and sometimes I need a reference book for a one-time thing. It’s pretty awesome that I can share the cost and the use of those books with other people. If I’m only going to read something once, why not?

And the library is a great way for me to try a book I’m not sure I’ll like. If I don’t like it, I just return it — nothing lost but a bit of time. But if I love it and know I’ll want to re-read it and lend it to others, then I go buy a copy. That’s a copy I probably wouldn’t have bought otherwise, since I wouldn’t have wanted to spend money on something I was unsure of.

So in conclusion, public libraries rule my world.
- pjkwik
  
  Thanks for the great words, Caroline.
  
  And to all those others who donated to save the Troy Library.
  
  And, especially to you, Cory for the increased publicity.
- Anonymous
  
  To people who grew up before the Internet, which is still a LOT of people, libraries are sacred spaces. This Tea Party effort offends me more than anything I’ve seen lately, and I have sent a donation as you suggest. Kudos to BoingBoing for spotlighting this situation.
- princeminski
  
  Donation duly sent. Many great comments, yours the best. One beneath contempt. Not a bad percentage. To happy mutants who grew up pre-Internet (and that’s still an enormous number) libraries are a Sacred Space. In small towns in the forties, fifties and sixties, they were all there was. What I’m feeling as I read about this must be very similar to what believers feel when somebody burns down a church.
  - steamed punk
    
    Thank you very much, Anonymous.
- steamed punk
  
  Thank you very much, Caroline.
  
  You are very right about the other value adds that libraries provide.
jphilby

Battling that Neanderthal DNA never ends, does it.

Sorry Troy … hoping you don’t go Back to the Future.
pjkwik

DeepNorth, I can assure you the Troy Public Library is relevant today: 100K walk-in computer users a year; 20 public computer classes a month (before our last round of budget cuts a few months ago); 500K web hits, equal to our door count; downloadable audio and ebooks, whose circulation is doubling every few months; meeting room space, always bustling and in demand by our public; early childhood literacy programs; a two-week computer skills for the unemployed program…

I think we do pretty well in relevancy.

And I am hopeful our public will respond on August 2.

Phillip Kwik
Head, Public Services
Borgs_of_Canada

Wait what ? A “well financed group that ruthlessly undermines the efforts of library supporters” ? How can that even exist ?

*I have this budget that I want to give to charity… what organism truly stands for what I believe ? Oh ! I know ! that organism that wants to close public libraries !*

I mean, seriously ?
- mccrum
  
  It sounds more like “In order to prevent spending more taxes we’ll have to create and privately fund an organization to do so! Not only will we save in the very long run, we’ll fight for our rights to prevent the community from spending money on services they all use!”
sworm

“Here in Troy there is a well financed group that ruthlessly undermines the efforts of library supporters.”

I blame the hell mouth.
kpkpkp

The rubber meets the road!
$5 transaction ID for this payment is: 6U964452C2130042A
- steamed punk
  
  Thank you very much, kpkpkp. Rubber cant do much without a little help from friction.
IronEdithKidd

There sure seems to be an awful lot of “fuck you, I got mine” going on up in Troy.

Steamed Punk, please seek out the Rick Snyder recall petition. His manufactured deficit is what’s being used as the excuse for there being no revenue to share.
- steamed punk
  
  Signed that one and the one against the Emergency Manager bill. That’s the one that once and for all deals with that hold democracy problem by allowing elected officials to be removed from office. It is so much easier to find consensus when you can get rid of the people whose opinion you don’t like:
  
  http://www.eclectablog.com/2011/04/benton-harbor-emergency-financial-mgr.html
  - IronEdithKidd
    
    I haven’t seen the one for the emergency manager law. I’d be happy to sign that one, too. Signed the governor’s recall petition about a month ago.
    
    Honestly, what did everyone think was going to happen when we let Slick Rick get away with *not* telling us what his policy proposals would be? Then a plurality voted for him anyway. WTF? I will be giddy if I get a second chance to vote against this elitist clown. (Yup. Elitist. Ann Arbor Schools aren’t good enough for his daughter. She goes to Green Hills.)
Anonymous

Just donated. I grew up in that town and have fond memories of loading up on books from that library when I was a kid. Although I consider myself an “anti-tax libertarian”, libraries do serve the public good, and provide value for the tax dollars spent. Anyhow…even though I no longer even live in the state, memories run strong. Long live the Troy Public Library!
- steamed punk
  
  Thank you very much, Anonymous. With supporters like you and the other happy mutants, it will be long lived indeed.
  
  I think it is worth bearing in mind that not all taxes are created equal. I would argue that the only thing worse than too high taxes is too low taxes, allowing all the things we need as a society to decay. We have what we have today because of what the people of yesterday provided when we were young not too mention the other good infrastructure investments.
querent

yay bb. good luck to Troy.

here in corvallis, OR, were we looking at our public library getting cut down to 4 days/week unless a new property tax passed (which was also to fund the senior center, the youth center/public pool, the low-income food assistance program). the only group i ever saw oppose it was the local republican party. when it hit the ballot, they didn’t even offer an argument against in the voter info pamphlet. there were about 10 arguments for, and not a single one against. the tax passed handedly and the library is still open on mondays and saturdays. But enough people voted “no” that you’d think one of them might have come up with an argument against to include in the voter materials.

here, i got one: “we got ours. fuck the poor.”

I call cowardice. If I had more than 9 dollars in my account right now, I’d send some to Troy.

I’ll be watching for results.
- steamed punk
  
  thanks, querent. I will keep you posted.
moniker42

Who are these people ideologically opposed to libraries? Aren’t even uptight family values socially conservative soccer moms into the idea of sending their children off to the local libraries? You know what I miss? Card catalogs. These are the same people who hate Amtrak. Well, they would be if they were good God Fearing Americans. Godamn Amtrak and libraries improving our social good! Bulldoze it to build a mega church and use the books for kindling I say! The only book I need is the GOOD book, and I mean the best book there is, that’s right, the good news. PUBLIC LIBRARIES ARE SOCIALISM!!! THAT’S RIGHT! LIKE THE NAZIS!!!

You’re not a Nazi are ya?
- Cobwebs
  
  I recall reading about one library–possibly here on BoingBoing–that was in danger of being closed because it was in a high-income neighborhood and the local residents resented “the poor” coming in from other areas of the community to use it. The people opposed to this library may have similar motives.
- CognitiveDissident
  
  Why, there’s so many facts in libraries, it should be outlawed!
  Book-sharing is a Socialist plot started by that pinko Ben Franklin!
  (At the very least, we should watch everything you read, so that you don’t get any original ideas! Perish the thought!)
  
  Stephen Colbert – “I don’t trust books. They’re all fact, no heart. And that’s exactly what’s pulling our country apart today. ‘Cause face it, folks: we are a divided nation. Not between Democrats and Republicans, or Conservatives and liberals, or tops and bottoms. No. We are divided between those who think with their head, and those who know with their heart.”
  
  Seriously though, Troy-library-killers, that is WAY past sad.
  It is more like Piltdown-Man pathetic.
  (No, you don’t deserve a Neanderthal.)
john_d

Public libraries are relics of a bygone era, made irrelevant by the internet.
- jjsaul
  
  I’ll assume that’s sarcasm. Public libraries are bustling, lively community centers with programs for children and adults going on every day. The stacks are only a fraction of the utility they serve.
- DeepNorth
  
  It depends on the system – for example libraries in Toronto are in constant renewal to stay relevant, supporting meeting areas, technology access, free wifi, food/drink allowed…and of course books. They also provide in-house workshops, reading groups, and services targeted at childhood learning. The impact on an urban center may be huge, and the personal cost-savings to my family has been massive (voracious readers). I think most people forget what a great resource the library system can be.
  
  That said, I am not familiar with Troy and the usage of its library. I skimmed the linked PDFs but didn’t notice the data. I think some additional data would help their argument with pragmatic outsiders like me. And were the linked wages for city staff supposed to indicate frugality or big spending? The commentary that these were within the range of other cities made me cough-up my coffee for some of the positions. My PhD and 80hour work weeks don’t garner such amounts.
  - steamed punk
    
    How about this data:
    
    http://troylibrary.info/sites/troylibrary.chillco.com/files/Library%20Comparison%20Chart.pdf
- marco antonio
  
  I’ll also assume sarcasm.
  
  Books are hard to read on computer screens.
  Computer screens are not available or accesible to every individual. Neither is content.
  
  Books can be read anywhere, anytime. They have depth and length on a subject rather than the bite-sized format of the web.
  Reading is key to the development of knowledge and understanding of the world.
  
  The day ‘internet’ is equally accessible to EVERYONE (in the world) no matter economic or technological environment, with free access to all the books ever written, through a device that does not rely on nearby power outlets, then books might become obsolete.
  
  We’re a long way from that yet.
- DoctressJulia
  
  OW, YOUR WRONGNESS BURNS ME!
- rivkin
  
  Also going to assume this is sarcasm – in many cities public libraries are the ONLY way some people get Internet connectivity at all. They do so much more than provide loanable books.
- Palomino
  
  john_d;
  
  Pretty soon in the near future eye doctors are going to be prescribing printed material. Their patients are going to be complaining of horrible headaches, dizziness, blurred vision, tunnel vision, and involuntary eye movements.
  
  The human eye was meant to absorb only natural light. Now eyes are soaking up entirely too much artificial light; and they are soaking up more of it than natural light.
  
  Natural light = Sunlight and Moonlight.
  
  Most common Artificial Light:
  
  ALL forms of computer monitor lighting weather it be a desktop or cell phone.
  
  All forms of Television lighting
  
  Incandescent
  Tungsten
  Halogen
  Fluorescent
  Mercury (vaporized)
  Halide (metal)
  Sodium
  
  Oh, never mind, its already happened, it’s call Computer Vision Syndrome. http://www.allaboutvision.com/cvs/.
  
  I still prefer my paper New Yorker over any other version.
  - mccrum
    
    “I still prefer my paper New Yorker over any other version.”
    
    Sure, but do you read it by natural or artificial light? Lighting itself (CFL to sodium vapor) is not to blame for CVS, staring at a monitor for eight hours a day to then go home and watch four hours of television will do well enough.
- Neon Tooth
  
  Public libraries are relics of a bygone era, made irrelevant by the internet.
  
  I think we can assume you’re trolling since you just made an account to only post this. It’s all the more funny considering that so many people rely on libraries as place to use the very *internet* you suggest has made libraries obsolete.
  
  As for irrelevance, I’ll point you to this letter in which the head of Chicago public libraries utterly destroys a ditzy fox news reporter who did a “report” suggesting that local libraries were a waste of money:
  
  Dear Ms. Davlantes:
  
  I am astounded at the lack of understanding of public libraries that your Monday evening story, Are Libraries Necessary, or a Waste of Tax Money? revealed. Public libraries are more relevant and heavily used today than ever before, and public libraries are one of the better uses of the taxpayersâ€™ dollars. Let me speak about the Chicago Public Library which serves 12 million visitors per year. No other cultural, educational, entertainment or athletic organization in Chicago can make that claim. Those 12 million visitors come to our libraries for free access to books, journals, research materials, online information and computers, reference assistance from trained librarians, early literacy programs, English as a second language assistance, job search assistance, after school homework help from librarians and certified teachers, best sellers in multiple formats (print, audio, downloadable and e-book), movies, music, author events, book clubs, story times, summer reading programs, financial literacy programs or simply a place to learn, dream and reflect.
  
  letter continues with more pwnage
- randomguy
  
  No, and no.
steamed punk

Doctorow Ex Machina!!!

I am so happy to report that we more than doubled our goal!!!

So far donations equal $2619!!!*

This is so terrific. I can only begin to think about thanking you properly. My first inadequate attempt will be to crudely describe my happiness.

This is really our second go around at this. There is a group working actively to defeat our millage, and they _won_ last time too, by copy and pasting the real library millage then campaigning against “all 4 tax increases”. The real one only lost by .8%.

We only recently won the right for another election 2.5 months ago. We have been working as nonstop as possible, walking neighborhoods, late night coding weekends, enough meetings to make an actuary question his choice of occupation.

People nodded politely when I mentioned a money bomb at a meeting a few weeks back. Sure I posted to boingboing, and sent an email to the Great Goggled One, but did I ever believe we would raise $2600? No way. I went to bed hoping we would make $200, prepared to donate at least half if needed.

When I woke up we were on the very top of boingboing thanks 2600X to Cory. The happiness was less than watching my kids be born, but way better than graduating high school. Maybe equivalent to leading a gaming party down a dungeon to find a cave troll convention. You run across a rope bridge, and then attempt to take the bridge out by triggering a landslide up above with your remaining magical arrow. The DM says sure if you roll a 20 to hit. Then you roll a 20 again for damage, and another 20 for sorry my analogy is running thin.

My point is you happy mutants have exceeded my wildest expectations, and in the process provided ample evidence to my theory that if you are pessimistic about the prospects of the future you are not spending enough time around young people.

Thank you all again so much! I will report back in 11 days and tell you if our campaign results were as impressive as your response. If we continue to work as hard as we have, and we will, then I like our odds.

Thank you all so much for your very generous support. If I could make each of you donors as happy as you have made me, then you will have all been properly paid back.

* I would argue that I am not abusing exclamation points, I am just this happy.
Anonymous

Troy is a weirdly conservative city in the mostly liberal county of Oakland. My dad lives there and he’s pissed that it’s even come to this. I live in an adjacent city which just overwhelmingly passed two more temporary milliages to save the library, fire and police services among others. Most other cities in the area have done the same. I mean really, you’re not willing to shell out a few bucks to save a library?
- Anonymous
  
  Never fear for Troy. They will cut all their public services to save their precious pennies but when they need help in an emergency they will expect their neighbors to bail them out for free.
Anonymous

Publishers have a bit of a love/hate relatinship with libraries. They’re big customers, but the pubishers would rather sell 5 books to individuals than have 10 people read a book they’ve checked out from the library.

moniker: For the most part, people who work in libraries don’t miss card catalogs.
- princeminski
  
  Anon # 4 (and moniker): Old people miss card catalogues. Another reason to get rid of Medicare.
  - chgoliz
    
    I snorted. And that’s from someone who once wrote a sonnet cycle to a card catalog system.
    
    (long story)
SuperGauntlet

Eh, it’s just a library. Not like anything important happens there.

Not like its the only way poor people can learn things and better themselves.

Not like this isn’t an attack by the city council and rich, classist assholes on the poor.

Not like this is class warfare.

Not like this city council is getting their asses fired next election year.

/lives in troy
//hates city council
///a wretched hive of scum and villany
////’we don’t have money for a library but we can do this city beautification bullshit duuur huuur herpy derpy doo’
/////why yes i am a farker, thanks for asking