I just remembered to check on the Jackson County vote on library funding. I was sure it was going to pass, and it seems some who actually live there and would have a better sense of local feeling thought it would be a close vote. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as reported by the School Library Journal:

The [Jackson County] system shut its doors in April, throwing most of its 115 employees, including 17 librarians, out of work. Jackson County is believed to be the largest library closure on record. “I thought the actual vote would be a nail-biter, and it wasn’t,” Interim County Library Services Director Ted Stark says of the vote, in which 58.3 percent of voters said “no” to a ballot question asking voters to approve an additional 66 cents-per-$1,000 of their appraised property value. (Link to article)

Facing the reality of people’s reading habits, which are rapidly dwindling, and the disinclination to support local services that are not directly linked to life and limb, i.e., police and firefighters, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it does hurt Ashland, Oregon, which is one of the 17 Jackson County libraries, since Ashland is a vibrant arts and education community. It’s not clear what Ashland can do. And it could be that the problem is spreading since neighboring Josephine County may be the next to shut its library doors.

While it’s nice not paying sales tax when we go to Oregon, the state is suffering as a result and should implement a sales tax that would help offset some of revenue lost when fed funds for nonexistent logging dried up and that would also mean that on cultural visits we’d leave a little extra behind.