Opinion: Defend public libraries

Defend public libraries—the medicine chest of our soul

by Chris Barge

Sylvia Wirba’s Navajo family didn’t have a car when she was growing up in Cortez, Colorado. ey couldn’t a ord to buy books either. But she could walk to school. And on the weekends, she and her mother and younger sister walked across town to their local public library. e library was where Boulder’s newest library commissioner fell in love with reading and began to learn about the world outside her community. Today, the graduate of CU’s law school is a partner at a Denver law rm focusing on housing matters with Native American tribes. She lives in Boulder and now devotes her free time to the Boulder Public Library.

Like me and hundreds of other Boulder Library champions, Sylvia is hoping voters say “yes” to the library district proposal on this November’s ballot.

Since ancient times, libraries have served as a wellspring for civilizations. e earliest known library was the sacred library in ebes, within the tomb complex of Ramsey II, the great pharaoh of Egypt. An inscription over its portals designated it as “the house of healing for the soul.” Others have translated the inscription as “Libraries: e medicine chest of the soul.”

Working for the Boulder Library Foundation over the past year, I’ve run into countless people with stories like Sylvia’s, who talk about childhood interactions with their public libraries that grounded them, helped them nd themselves and learn about their community and the larger world.

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read,” wrote James Baldwin. “It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”

Boulder is a relatively young community, but it has relied on libraries as a healing place since the early days. Its rst libraries took the form of reading rooms that popped up on Pearl Street in the late 1800s. e population here was only about 1,000 and composed mostly of men connected to the mining industry. e reading rooms were a refuge for those who sought a more civilized way of interacting with one another, in a town whose nightlife was dominated by

bars and brothels.

It was America’s Progressive Era, and a time when a national movement helped libraries become ubiquitous. It was also a local movement led almost exclusively by female volunteers who paid for the books with donations they collected by going door-to-door. roughout Boulder’s history, philanthropy has supported the creation, upkeep and expansion of our libraries. Our rst library — now known as the Carnegie Library for Local History — was built in 1907 with a $15,000 grant from steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie. In return, the City of Boulder agreed to provide the

THE ANDERSON FILES from Page 5

He claims to be a regular workin’ guy but disdains unions. Actually, he’s a multimillionaire CEO of a concrete pouring company that has been ned hundreds of thousands of dollars by the Department of Labor for repeated health and safety violations.

He’s in trouble for repeatedly lying about his position on abortion. He is a forced birther.

I don’t know if O’Dea has a position on furries. Heidi Ganahl sure does. She’s a University of Colorado Regent and the Republican candidate for governor.

In September, Ganahl told Jimmy Sengenberger on his Denver KNUS Radio show that “not many people know that we have furries in Colorado schools.”

“Have you heard about this story?” Ganahl asked Sengenberger. “Yeah, kids identifying as cats. It sounds absolutely ridiculous, but it’s happening all over Colorado and schools are tolerating it. It’s insane. What on earth are we doing? Knock it o , schools. Put your foot down. Like, stop it. Let’s get back to teaching basics and not allow this woke ideology, ideological stu , in ltrate our schools. And it is happening here in Colorado. It’s why I moved from Boulder Valley to Douglas County, because it was happening in my kids’ schools four years ago.”

Furries are people who dress up in giant animal mascot costumes. ey are fans of media that features anthropomorphic animals — that is, animals who walk, talk, and act like humans (Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny for instance). ey are like the adult fans of Star Trek and Harry Potter who dress up.

According to the International Anthropomorphic Research Project (an academic body that studies furries), 78% of furries identify as non-heterosexual, plus 2.1% identify as transgender. is spring, Nebraska state Senator Bruce Bostelman, a conservative Republican, said he had heard that schools were placing litter boxes in school bathrooms to accommodate children who self-identify as cats. is was during a public, televised debate on a bill intended to help kids who have behavioral problems. “ ey meow and they bark and they interact with their teachers in this fashion,” he said.

His comments quickly went viral on social media. Hours later, he backtracked after doing some research and acknowledged that the story wasn’t true. Reuters fact-checked the many stories in various states and also concluded there was no evidence of this happening anywhere. e furry frenzy is part of the GOP attack on public schools. In Pennsylvania, Maine, Michigan, Iowa and Idaho, right-wing parents have been disrupting school boards with accusations that furries were getting special treatment. A Michigan “concerned parents” Facebook group promoted fears that furries “could be in your child’s classroom hissing at your child and licking themselves.”

is opinion column does not necessarily re ect the views of Boulder Weekly.