When they came for my library

Last week my town held the third vote on my municipal library’s budget. It passed, but it was touch and go there for a while. I got a big raise which I am grateful for but also won’t affect my life that much since I am a super part-timer and have been during my whole twenty years working here. The library director got a 40% raise which seems shockingly large but only because she was terribly underpaid before then. She has a Masters degree and nearly 25 years of experience running this particular library which includes managing a historical building as well as a staff of three and a few part-timers like myself. The story isn’t the usual “people don’t want to fund their library” but in some ways it is. Here are the larger points in the debate which has been going on since last November. My town had a town manager who was leaving after five years. He and the library director did not get along well. When the trustees proposed their budget for this year, doing a large amount of research…