Curtail The Purchasing Of Unnecessary, Lavish "Techie" Items, Sure, But Please Keep The Libraries Open

Due to the worldwide economic downturn, I understand that some tax-supported services will have to be curtailed and others even cut altogether, at least for the time being, despite the stimulus plan that looks set to take effect in the U.S. This is, after all, the way of things in rather anemic economic times such as these. As a (tax-supported) teacher, I have seen my educational district tighten its economic belt over the last few months, which is to be expected as part of the reality of the present local, state, national, and international situation.

Yet, at the risk of sounding "nit-picky" and a bit overly-precious, I'm worried about the reported potential library closings in the Twin Cities metro area. (I assume that many other metro areas around the world are currently wrestling with related potential closings.) This may seem "squeamish" of me, but here's why: each year I teach English--and I've done it for a decade or so now, both in the U.S. and in the U.K.--I notice that more and more students (and their parents) compensate for a lack of an extensive vocabulary by using what I rather inelegantly term "filler non-words," and this compensation process is happening to an alarming extent. The following might be an example of someone struggling with this phenomenon: "She, like, told us, um, that, like, we should go, ya' know, over there...." Again, these sentences are not just uttered on a consistent basis by youngsters; just listening to adult discussions in restaurants, stores, and so forth would inform anyone who cares to pay attention that people in their twenties, thirties, and even early forties are now often tending to talk like this...and not just in the United States, either.

Just ask any teacher worth his or her salt and that teacher will tell you that, along with other factors, a rather limiting vocabulary is often a contributing factor to school violence. The reason for this is obvious, if you think about it: we all want to be understood, and rather precisely, because we all want to get our unique perspectives across. Those who cannot do that well--often due to lacking the words necessary to make their points explicit--tend to become very frustrated. When frustration bubbles over, violence can burst forth. And it does, as pushing and shoving takes the place of argument construction. (A technical way of putting this is as follows: individuals who for whatever reason do not possess a consistent conceptual framework for argument construction tend to show how they "feel" about something in a rather base-level, physical manner more often than those who do possess a consistent conceptual framework for argument construction.)

Furthermore, I've personally found that individuals who show a proclivity toward consistent pushing-and-shoving during their formative years often display similar attitudes later in life. (This is not necessarily the case for individuals who show only occasional, innocuous levels of these types of behaviors.) Having spoken about this recently with several other current-educators and former-educators I know, I've discovered that most of them seem to feel the same way.

I know, I know--this is "liberal nonsense," blah, blah, blah. Well, whether we care to acknowledge it or not, this happens with, and to, people of all ages. In both good economic times and bad, I feel that we need to ensure that our libraries remain open and accessible. Though many people will not visit them, many others will, and those who will visit them are not just the folks one might imagine would be "library types." We don't need any potentially avoidable negative factors contributing to an already tense time in our world just now--and I use the term "world" in both a micro- and macro- sense. Though at present the world economy is in a state of regression and recession, we cannot afford to simultaneously regress in a literary sense. If we wish to curtail expensive visual and technological elements of libraries in the name of fiscal restraint, I'm just fine with that, but we need to keep the rent-able books accessible to those who both can and cannot afford to buy them on a fairly consistent basis.