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By Chris Meadows

library Found via BoingBoing: Budget cutbacks have closed a California public library that Ray Bradbury tried to save. Despite his efforts, fundraising fell short of covering the $650,000 budget shortfall that would have kept it open.

Explaining his support of libraries generally and his efforts in Ventura specifically, Mr. Bradbury said in an interview last summer: “Libraries raised me. I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries, because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.”

It is no surprise that public institutions in California are in dire straits given the state’s ongoing budget crisis. It is a pity that it affects centers of learning such as libraries.

It is one thing to state that with TeleRead (the idea, not this blog) physical buildings should become less necessary in favor of the Internet—but for now, they still are, and each one that closes down makes our world a little darker.

 
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