I cannot believe what I am reading here. People who claim they love the city
and yet would vote no on building a new downtown library? Where am I, the
deep south? (But, of course, even Dallas has a fabulous relatively new
downtown library.) Admittedly, I am a major library fan. I check out books,
books on tape, cd's etc. a lot. I mostly use Walker and the downtown
library. When my son out grew the collection at Walker, we went to
Southdale because the downtown library felt so cold and sterile (the fact
that you have to walk by the smelly public men's room to get to the
children's area also added to my discomfort).
A few years ago, however, I stopped checking things out at Southdale, when I
learned from a librarian who works in Minneapolis that the state reimburses
the suburban libraries every time a Minneapolis resident checks something out
from one of the suburban libraries. Our Minneapolis libraries don't get the
state money (or maybe just get less) because more Minneapolis residents use
the suburban libraries than the suburbanites use the Minneapolis libraries.
There is no mystery why more Mpls. people would rather use libraries like
Southdale library than visa versa. Sothdale Library was built in the early
1970's, and was totally redone in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Ridgedale
library in Minnetonka was built in the 1980s and totally gutted and rebuilt
in the past couple of years. Those people in the suburbs (and/or the county
commissioners) know what is needed to maintain a decent quality of life. And
here we are, in the largest city in Minnesota (the state known for high
education standards) saying our libraries are not worth improving. To
defeat the library referendum because of the Target deal, Block E etc. is
crazy. Kids don't care and people moving here don't care and many us who
live here now don't care about that as much as we care about having decent
libraries. Even Duluth, Rochester, Mankato, Willmar, and Moorhead (I travel
a lot and always visit the public library) have newer, nicer libraries. The
people of Minneapolis should have it at least as good.
I apologize for the rant.
Ann Wurdeman
ECCO
