Libraries and Poverty

As I enter into my new life in North Florida, I spend a lot of time in public Libraries, using the wireless internet facilities. Today I am at the Gadsden County Public Library, Quincy branch.

Gadsden County is a very poor county, I have been told. Lots of poor folks here, drugs, crime, and sadness. Well, I guess these things tend to go together. (On the other hand, rich folks aren't any happier, in my experience.)

Now, you would think that something as low on the list of government priorities as a library, an institution of free books and information available for ANYBODY, would reflect the poverty of the area. I haven't done any research or anything . . . where libraries in Florida actually get there funding . . . but I find them to be quite nice.

Washakie County Library, the one that I visited as a child, worked in as a teenager, and slaved away in to get my freakin' high school diploma, freezing in the back corner by the water-fountain that moaned and groaned and had huge lime and calcium deposit staining its basin, seems to represent the place where I come from. Washakie County has a smelly, tight, and depressing public library. Gadsden County libraries are bright, airy, fresh, and actually pleasant to be in. The water fountains can be polished to shine. I'm not sure, the toilets might be automatic flush . . . God, I hope not!

I spent 4 months as a student at Uganda Christian University, in Mukono, Uganda. I'm a library patron everywhere I go, and Africa didn't change that. Well, UCU didn't really have a library per say . . . each department had a library housed in some building that was fixed up for the purpose. I primarily used the Law Library, as all 30 of us American students did, as it was the biggest and included the collection meant for us white kids. There wasn't a day it was easy to find a seat in that place. All those studious black heads bent over their work, paging through law tomes, scribbling away, reaping knowledge and understanding. There was a waiting list and time limit for using the computers, which were on dial-up internet connection, and didn't always work anyway. Things were all warm and musty, and flies would buzz in through the holes in the screens. Let me tell you, I miss that place.

Now, I sit in Gadsden County's public library, the only one at this table. I'm warm, and able to spread my work out. I don't have to wait for anybody, there's nobody signed up to use my book as soon as I'm done with my half hour. I tell you what, poverty is relative, and everyplace is a place.

UCU has been raising money for a library . . . one to house the university's separate libraries and provide better computer services for its large student body (2500 in 2003 . . . I don't think they bother keeping up with the numbers on their website . . . that's not an important thing culturally over there.) That's where half my tithe has been going in recent years. Not because I wanted a better library experience while I was over there . . . I liked those flies and the crowd . . . but because sometimes my romantic experience of poverty isn't what everyone else wants. I was there for a four-month visit . . . for my colleagues, that university and that library could make the difference between being a teacher or a prostitute. And I think that's worth spending my money on.

http://www.ucu.ac.ug/hamulib/home.html

Support your libraries, my friends. Anyway, now back to the job hunt, so I can start earning money and actually have a tithe to give again.