For the love of books

To The Eagle,

In the earlier years of Timberland Regional Library, I was invited to give an inspirational address at their All-Staff Day in Tumwater. Presumably this was because of my outspoken love and support for books, libraries, and the people who love them both, a devotion shared by TRL's founders, staff, and directors of the day. It's a long way from there to now, when TRL's Public Information Officer feels impelled to write my local paper to call me a liar. It's also a sad tale of serious mission drift.

As chief flak for the "New Timberland"', it is Mr. Chrzan's job to put a good face on his masters' mistakes and unpopular decisions. But there is no denying that TRL broke trust with its taxpaying members, friends, and supporters by stripping the Naselle branch of most of its books and all of its librarians. This is fact.

In my earlier letter, I expressed the fears of many TRL users of other small branches that theirs may be next on the chopping block. I sincerely hope that Mr. Chrzan is correct in his charge that I was mistaken in this. At least he owns to the damage TRL have already committed at Naselle, by asserting that they really don't plan to do it anywhere else. We'll see about that.

TRL today are the masters of euphemism. In conducting recent remodels at Ilwaco, McCleary, and Mountainview branches, they denuded them of most of their books and beloved ambience. At Ilwaco, not only the bulk of the stacks, but the handsome woodwork and tables that made the place feel like a library all went, in service to space to be used for anything but books. When longtime Ilwaco library supporter Marion Oman saw the post-remodel library, she (like many others) was deeply saddened. "I was shocked by the lack of books," she wrote to the Chinook Observer, "[and] by the feeling of walking into a doctor’s office. It felt empty and devoid of warmth." Yet TRL dares to call their vandalism of a beloved public space a "REFRESH"! Just as they justify their heartless conversion of Naselle into a soulless, self-service depot as “expanded access”—as if more open hours and a key fob could possibly make up for the missing stacks and banished librarians. How stupid, really, do they think we are?

I'm sorry, Mr. Chrzan, but you'll have a hard time putting a pretty face on this pig.

Robert M. Pyle,

Gray's River