Letter to the Editor: What More Can We Do to Save Our Libraries?

Dear Editor and Friends of the Library:

I hope that you have taken the opportunity to share your support for library funding with at least some, if not all of, the representatives and senators whose addresses I sent along to you a few days age. I`ve had some feedback from you about these messages and it is good to know that I am not alone in making these contacts. Please keep it up.

Now, what more can we do? HERE`S WHAT WE CAN DO...

Lisa Brasher, our Levy County Library Director, has arranged for one or more of the County`s air-conditioned transit busses to take us to Tallahassee Tuesday, to visit face-to-face with our lawmakers and tell them that we want our libraries to continue to be supported by State funding.

Each year, the Florida Library Association, the only organization representing public library needs for the State of Florida, sponsors LIBRARY DAY IN TALLAHASSEE. This Tuesday, March 29th, is the date of this year`s LIBRARY DAY. Lisa has registered for the event and there will be no charge to our Friends` members to attend with her, other than the cost of our own lunches. This is a great bargain and opportunity for those of us who are willing to take our convictions to the men and women who make our laws and set our appropriations.

I have been to LIBRARY DAYS in past years and they are very effective. The legislators know that we are coming and expect to see us. The Florida Library Association was a pioneer in this kind of concentrated lobbying effort with the Legislature and they respect us for it.

IT WORKS, BUT WE HAVE TO SHOW UP, AND THE MORE PEOPLE THAT WE HAVE THERE, THE MORE EFFECTIVE WE WILL BE!!!

Please support this effort by joining us. A few of us already have firm plans to go, but we need more numbers. Lisa will provide large name tags showing where we come from. We will go around, in a Levy group or groups, to the respective offices, as suggested by the Florida Library Association Legislative Committee experts, and overwhelm them with our numbers and dedication. We need to have enough troops there for them to remember us.

The bus will leave the Baker Building (across from NAPA) in Bronson at 7:30 Tuesday morning and then make a stop in Chiefland at the Luther Callaway Public Library . The bus will leave the Chiefland stop at 8. Lisa has promised cold water bottles and something to nibble on in the bus.

If you are able to go, please contact me, Tom Reitz at 493-1896, 949-4513cell, tomreitz@msn.com or Lisa Brasher at 486-5552 or lbrasher@neflin.org so Lisa will know how many buses to request.

PLEASE GIVE THIS EFFORT A TOP PRIORITY AND JOIN US FOR A GREAT DAY!!!

Tom Reitz
Chiefland