My intrepid and vigilant San Francisco correspondent for this site, Arthur, (AKA The T-man of Geary Street) , reports this afternoon that the impending closure of the Jackson County library system has hit the big time: a major story and a podcast in The San Francisco Chronicle :
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=5&entry_id=14040
The podcast on the story features the reporter getting reaction in a local breakfast haunt called Sally's Place--the typical local color venue someone from Big City USA would go to make Medford and southern Oregon appear as "hicks in the sticks" as possible. For the record, this area I live in is home to two major institutes of higher learning (Southern Oregon University and Rouge Community College) and has a goodly number of Starbucks style coffee shops (hate the stuff myself, but whatever) and first class resturants as well. Places like Sally's, although no doubt nice places to eat, are now the exception and not the rule.
The stereotype Merdith May plays up here is that the Rogue Valley is all full of folks who care mainly about gun rights, chopping down douglas fir trees like they were lettuce, riffing nasty on "gov'ment" and making sure they get enough cholesterol in their bacon and eggs. I find that part of her story a bit patronizing.
Beyond that, in the main, she is right about what's going on up here. The libraries are going to close and a kind of information feudalism is going to set in where only the folks who can afford Barnes and Noble prices wil be able to get newer books, CDs, audio books, etc. I've talked about the reasons for this situation in other library-related posting you can reach by hitting the edit tag below.
It's really a shame. As I told my friend, I enjoy browsing around in a well-stocked public library as much if not more than reading itself. Most people I run into are a little depressed and embarrassed this is happening locally. I among them.
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