Melville House is attending our first American Library Association‘s ALA Annual event this weekend in New Orleans and we’re pretty excited about it. We’ve always enjoyed healthy support for our books from the library community, not just in getting them onto shelves but also by way of the library as cultural venue, a facet of the library’s role that often gets looked over.

The problems that librarians have been facing in this economy are staggering. Massive cutbacks, hour reductions and employment caps/terminations have left the library community in a tough spot. It’s not just the fact that they’re working with less but that they’re actually having to do more with that reduced status. Library circulations are up. The demand for free public technology centers is higher than ever. All this at the same time that libraries have been cut to the bone by budget reductions.

A visit to New York Public Library’s Find The Future / Fund The Future campaign will quickly demonstrate to you the need New York communities have for their local libraries. Scrolling across their live map of New York’s library system quickly reveals the large number of people that are willing to engage in helping libraries. Hundreds, if not thousands of letters mailed on behalf of local branches urging a reduction of cuts. This is not merely some online survey. These are letters people are writing. A glance at the fundraising component shows a healthy portion of the goal having already been arrived at (note: they are still tens of thousands short of goal, which in turn is millions of dollars short of the cuts they face).

The situation is obvious. Many of the people who enjoy the services of their local library have risen to the occasion and made displays of solidarity. We urge you to go over to the Fund The Future campaign website and pitch in, whether by way of donation or letter. The number of people that use libraries is in the end perhaps the biggest asset they have.