Editor:
As our elected officials ponder local government budgets for next year, it is reported that the Sechelt library is woefully below an acceptable level of funding. Why should we, taxpayers and residents, care about this?
A well-stocked and fully-staffed library supports parents who are home-schooling or pre-schooling youngsters, and helps attract and retain the well-educated and well-rewarded young families that are needed in a good, balanced community. It also supports the professionals, technicians and business men and women with materials needed to keep up to date in their careers as well as leisure reading in books, a wide variety of magazines and video and audio recordings.
It supports teens and young adults who want to try things like computers and robots, games like chess or interests like the natural environment or the Indigenous ways of life in our province.
As governments and businesses continue to develop ways to require their citizens and customers to serve themselves online, seniors and others who lack skills or means to be online at home need access to computers and librarians, with their well-developed reputation for protecting the privacy of those they serve.
A good library is a great place to start satisfying wants as well as needs. We should nurture, not starve them. It would be wonderful if Sechelt were to challenge the other member areas that its library serves, from Pender Harbour to Roberts Creek, to make a substantial start on reducing the accumulated resource deficit at Sechelt library.
Henry Hightower, Sechelt
