County Libraries Need Upgrading

If enough voters say yes on Sept. 19, residents in rural and suburban Spokane County will enjoy a dramatic improvement in their library services.

The demand for what’s being proposed became clear after voters in the city of Spokane shouldered what turned out to be one of their best investments in many years. The city’s new library system - featuring new buildings, an enlarged collection and computerized information services - has been a huge hit.

Residents who live outside the city and don’t pay for the city’s system were eager to get in on the action - and were dismayed to learn they have to pay a steep fee for the privilege.

On the Sept. 19 ballot is a $7.66 million bond issue that would do for their library system, the county library district, what the city’s bond issue did for the city’s library system.

This proposal will make a big contribution to educational opportunity and quality of life in the county’s outlying areas, where population growth has been most rapid. Children who live in outlying areas often ride the bus to school and cannot easily get to a bookstore, or even to a library. The ability to order a book or read a magazine by computer, from school or home, is a leap forward.

The bonds would provide $3.49 million for new or expanded library facilities in Deer Park, Cheney, Fairfield and Airway Heights; $2 million to purchase additional library materials, and $2.14 million for a new computer system allowing access to magazine databases, the Internet and the county library’s catalog. The proposed computer system includes hookups to 30 high schools and middle schools within the district’s service area. Home computer users could link to the county library’s system by modem just as card-holders with the city of Spokane libraries can do.

The new computers would make the county library able, once again, to link with the city library’s computer system - provided, of course, that the two libraries are able later to settle on terms for such a connection, as they should.

The cost to the affected taxpayers is a bargain: 11 to 12 cents per $1,000 of property valuation, every year for 10 years. But in two more years the county library’s 1988 bond issue - with an identical levy rate - will be paid off. So, this year’s proposal would raise tax rates for only two years, then they’d drop back to the current level. The county library operates, by the way, at a lower cost per patron than the city library does, and it serves a larger area, with 212,150 people and 1,700 square miles.

A good library system is a good investment - for young people who need encouragement to read, and indeed for all of us. We urge the county library’s patrons to go to the polls and vote yes.

, DataTimes MEMO: Editor’s note: To make room for editorials endorsing ballot issues in the Sept. 19 primary election, today’s editorial page does not include Friday’s pro/con feature. After the election, “From both sides” will return.

The following fields overflowed: SUPCAT = EDITORIAL, ENDORSEMENT, COLUMN - Our View CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board