Letters to the Editor_________________

Speaking up for the Wright Library

Re: Speak Up (7-23-09 and 7-24-09 issues Dayton Daily News)

“Metro library will ask voters for more money” and "Libraries are becoming obsolete, just like the post offices are. We need to deal with the facts and stop reminiscing about the good old days.”

My first thought upon reading this item in the paper was one of pity for its author. To not know the fun of browsing in friendly public library is to miss one of the great pleasures of growing up. I can remember going to the first Oakwood Library when it was on Park Avenue. Even though the rule was SILENCE, if you encountered a friend you could talk in whispers across a table or retreat to the stacks.

Oakwood high school teacher Catherine Hadeler was the first librarian at the spacious Wright Library in its present location.

When I returned home after serving three years in the Army overseas during World War II, I found my mother had saved a few letters addressed to me. Among them was one from Catherine Hadeler informing me that I owed the library forty eight cents on an overdue book.

Catherine and I later became dear friends since she and my mother spent their last years in the same retirement home. She and I would discuss art, a subject she was passionate about.

Near the front entrance to Wright Library are three benches for those who may want to sit outdoors to read. There is also an inscription on a stone showing that these were put there in memory of the late Oakwood icon Richard Pryor. The inscription reads: “A good book is a friend for life.” How true!

Learning to turn knobs and push buttons will never replace books as the road to creative and original thinking. Jacques Barzun, the great teacher and writer on art and music, in an essay entitled ‘The Centrality of Reading,’ says “Reading and its necessary twin, writing, constitute not merely an ability but a power.I mean that reading is not just a device by which we are reached and reach others for practical ends. It I also, and far more importantly, a mode of incarnating and shaping thought.”

People may argue about ecoomic or management factors but Wright Memorial Library is a community treasure, and we need to do whatever it takes to assure that that both entrances are used the way its architects intended.

David L. Smith
Oakwood

Library needs to downsize role

The Oakwood Library is short $300,000 in a $1,700,000 budget. Maybe rather than ask for the needed funds it is time to re-evaluate the function of the library in a 21st Century Oakwood. Oakwood has a number of attributes that make the current operations of the library redundant and in some way counter productive.

The use of the facilities of a public library has changed. The library should be a reference source. When I was a child, the libraries had pictures pasted on cardboard that we used in school reports. This is hardly necessary now.

These are my suggestions:

1. Donations of books and videos should be encouraged but only to the extent that they have some “historical” value. As an example: A good copy of the Harry Potter series could easily be obtained when the last book is several years old.

2. The library does not need to be the repository of brand new movies and most new books (especially fiction). They are too expensive to buy and they do not serve the patrons for their cost. There is usually a waiting time for videos well beyond even the time when they become $1 videos. Again older purchased or donated books/videos would suffice for the historical repository of good classical movies.

3. The library should not be subsidizing day care centers. I have watched on Fridays when the day care providers take a significant number (over thirty) of books and videos out to be used at their establishments for several weeks at a time. I would suggest in general that patrons be limited to maybe 5 to 10 items at a time.

4. The large collection of magazines could easily be reduced. Some of which I am sure are never used. Older version donated by library patron would be sufficient for references.

5. A micro-film repository would seem to be redundant with the current Internet searching ability. The micro-film repository could be passed onto one of the local universities or colleges.

6. The use of computers should be encouraged for research and factual current information.

There would significant saving when these ideas are implemented. I am sure other ideas could be used to reduce the budget of the library. It has become time to accept a new lesser roll of the library in Oakwood.

James A. Broz
244 East Drive
Oakwood, Ohio 45419
(937) 299-7592