Libraries still matter as politicians slash them

PS Mag - Philadelphia—a city whose school system ranks among the nation's worst—has a major reading problem on its hands. Philadelphia Inquirer's Kristen Graham reported that the city’s school librarian population has dropped by an astonishing 94 percent since 1991. Twenty-four years ago, there were 176 certified librarians throughout the city’s 218 schools—there are now 11. This comes on the heels of the city's 2013 closure of its top schools’ libraries—victims to an unmerciful budget crisis.

With the ubiquity of the Internet, it may seem like librarians—and perhaps libraries in general—are quickly becoming non-essential. While the facts don’t lie—a 94 percent regional drop off rate is practically a death sentence to any profession—the Pew Research Center recently compiled some data on libraries in the 21st century that might surprise you.

People under 65 years old are actually more likely to have visited a library in the past year than their older counterparts. In fact, those between 16 and 29 are just as likely to use a library as those older than 29.

And those younger visitors also feel the library in an integral part of their neighborhood. Some 90 percent of Americans who are 16 and older said closing the local public library would impact their community (with 63 percent saying it would have a “major” impact). Then there are the so-called "distant admirers;" of the 15 percent of Americans who have never set foot in a library, the majority still think of them as being crucial to the community. Two-thirds of these distant admirers credit libraries for “[promoting] literacy and reading,” and “[giving] everyone a chance to succeed.”