Bookin' around...

We found how to get inside the library today when we visited there with friends (I had attempted a few weeks ago, but went down the wrong drive, only to encounter a guarded gate - very common here - with an only Spanish speaking guard). It is very small; very, very small. In fact, the whole thing would easily fit inside the children's section in our Lafayette library.

However, it's a very interesting place... it's completely community run, operating on a skelton budget funded by the cost of library cards ($20/year) and volunteer staff (with the exception of one, part time guy who pays the bills and does other essentials. A number of the volunteers did not speak Spanish as their first language). The books are received almost entirely from donations. Donated books are either sold at reasonable prices to generate more revenue for the library (these are usually the less pristine volumes), or shelved for circulation. There are over 700 community families involved in this library, and they can have whatever kind of books they'd like in their library (read: no government regulations!). The sad thing is that there is no library system here (my card doesn't work at any other libraries) and there are very few libraries around. The next nearest library (so we've heard) is about 20-25 min. away, and is another community-run venture.

The lingering thoughts in the back of mind: What does it say when you have a city of 4 million people and there are only 700 families involved in the library? Is that a fair indication of the number of folks around who read books for fun and education? If so, would that shed some light on the social poverty we see everywhere?