Our library is booming:  10,000 checkouts most months, and like McDonald’s, thousands served every year. 

We do need more current books, however.  An educated citizenry is essential for a working democracy, and as I understand it, Homer is the “city that works.” 

We would work better if we could read up-to-date books, however. 

With Pebble mine a major local controversy, we’d assume there’d be several good modern books on hard rock mining in Homer’s library. Nope. 

With all the drilling going on around us, we would do well to read some of  the current books on natural gas fracking, and on other costs of natural gas production. Not from our library however. Not much here on this topic. 

How about the conflicts over giving the oil giants billions in tax relief? No doubt there are lots of good unbiased references in Homer’s library about petroleum production and taxation. Well, some doubt. OK, not much new here. 

We underspent on library books for decades. Our city council and Mayor Beth Wythe need to recognize the problems inherent in failing to maintain our library materials collection. Then they need to find the money to pay for the new print and nonprint materials we need to make the important decisions our democracy demands. 

This will be an interesting challenge. 

Phil Gordon