Oregon Faces Largest Library Closure

The message on the home page of the Jackson County Library Services Web site is very clear: “ALL 15 Jackson County Library branches WILL BE CLOSED as of Saturday, April 7, 2007, due to a lack of funding.” That's right. No computers, no book deliveries to children, no homework help, no storytimes, no after-school or summer reading programs. Nada.

In what might be the largest library closure in history, Jackson County in southern Oregon is closing its main library in Medford, as well as 14 other branches, after Congress failed to renew funding for the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, a federal subsidy that provided the state with $150 million annually.

“As far as I'm concerned, we're closing,” says Ted Stark, interim director of Jackson County Library Services. “We have a whole set of procedures to shut down, and we've already begun those. Until I hear otherwise, we're closing.”

“Otherwise” refers to desperate attempts by House representatives, librarians, and others who are currently walking the halls of Capitol Hill lobbying members of Congress to restore funding. But if that fails, the fate of the library system will be left in the hands of Jackson County's citizens.

If voters decide in favor of a local levy on the May ballot, it will cover the library's annual $8.3 million operating budget for three years by requiring property owners to pay 66 cents per $1,000 of assessed value of their homes. How much money are we talking about? It would only amount to $59.40 (or $5 a month) for a house with an assessed value of $90,000. If voters say “no” to the levy, the libraries will stay closed until another solution is reached.

Most sources don't expect the libraries to remain permanently closed. A closure of weeks or months, however, will be just as damaging to patrons as to the library's 115-member staff. The library system, the state's second largest after Portland, employs 17 librarians, including five who specialize in children's and young adult services. More than 3,000 people visit the 15 branches each day, and children read 63,000 books during summer reading programs. In 2005–2006, Jackson County librarians introduced 6,122 students to new books by visiting 228 classrooms throughout town.

The closure is particularly poignant because most of the library system has new or renovated children's rooms, funded by a county bond issue in 2000.

Laurel Prchal, supervisor of the Talent branch, says her new children's room, which is still under construction, is 10 times larger than before and boasts floor-to-ceiling windows through which young patrons can gaze out upon a municipal playground. “We had our opening ceremony on February 25 and people referred to it as 'bittersweet, [because] we had the opening of an incredibly beautiful library, only to be closed six weeks later,” she says.