From the editor - Books are for exploring not banning Libraries are special

It’s Banned Books Week again, Sunday through Saturday the 30th.

Why do “we” – libraries, citizens, bookstores and newspapers – make a big show, proclaiming a week every September to rally our communities against the specter of banned books? Being against banned books is in a newspaper’s DNA. The first amendment of the U.S. Constitution reads, in part: “Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

Books, of course, are speech, written down.

This paper’s position on banning books: it’s against it.

That’s against anyone banning books or magazines or websites, it is against adults restricting – censoring – specific books or authors in schools or libraries. Parents can prevent their children from learning all that there is to learn, but adults cannot keep books, magazines or other materials from others – child or adult – or from schools or libraries. That is against the interests of the entire community. It is against the very foundation of our country. It is un-American.

And what is more American than libraries? Nothing, except maybe volunteer fire departments. And newspapers. These institutions blossomed in the American colonies in the 17th century.

Libraries have been literal temples in communities across this country. Research with your kids the Carnegie libraries. The one nearest La Conner still in operation is Bellingham Fairhaven. Of the 43 Carnegie libraries built in Washington, libraries operate in 14. Another 19 have been re-purposed. Ten are razed.

Libraries, like post offices – also built to support community – can be among the coolest buildings in town. We can’t say that in La Conner today. But maybe we will. The La Conner Regional Library and the Friends of the La Conner Regional Library have invested five years, some monies, and a whole lot of effort to get a new library built. The purpose of the library’s thrift shop – also supported by the Kiwanis chapter – starts with raising money. That corner is where La Conner’s new library will be built.

The La Conner Library Foundation’s major goal is securing funds for the construction of a new library in La Conner.

Getting the library built depends on raising $3.2 million. Progress is being made, and the numbers are helped by a possible State capital grant, given that the legislature passes a capital budget in 2018. But that money, say $500,000, will both have to be more than matched and spent within a year of its allocation.

The major heavy lifting, getting the library fully funded and built, is up to us.

The Weekly News is all in. The paper is now a life member of Friends of the La Conner Regional Library. That’s only the first check. The rhetoric is easy. Writing more checks, and larger checks, will be harder for this newspaper. But it commits itself to getting the library built once the State antes up its slice of the funding.

La Conner is a special place, I am told over and over again. Special includes being visionary and generous. I am looking forward to people in the community prove that they believe, and are, what they say their town is and what it means to them.

Great towns have great library buildings. This I want to see. I commit to doing my part to make it happen.