TESTIMONY OF SOPHY BURNHAM, AUTHOR WASHINGTON D.C. RESIDENT
My name is Sophy Burnham and I am a writer. I have written 12 books- three on the NYTimes best seller list- four plays and two films. Last year my play Prometheus was produced at the Studio Theater and I might add that research on that play was done in the DC Public Library. My essays and articles that have been published in magazines worldwide. My books have won prizes. They have translated into 22 languages.
I use the library, moreover, my books are found in the library. That’s what an author wants- a place where people can go and get your works for free. When a book sells a million copies- as one of mine has- it is probably read by 10 times that number, passed hand to hand, or borrowed from a library by people who cannot afford to spend 25 dollars on a book and who wouldn’t have a place to shelve it if they did. That’s the point of libraries- to collect our culture, cup it in tender hands, and offer it like water to thirsting mouths.
What is library but the repository of our souls? We STILL talk of the Alexandria Library that burned down. We STILL talk about the monks transcribing their literature letter by painstaking letter. And because of their labor we know about our history. Our ancestors. Which is to say, we know about ourselves. A book is a window to the self.
A library provides a collection. It is also a place where a homeless man can read a paper, where an unemployed woman can scan a computer for a job; it’s a place for children to do homework after school; or for little kids to hear a storyteller recite for them the tale of where they came from, who they are, what they can choose to become. A library is where they learn pride. Do you remember how the world opened up and spread itself at your feet when you first learn to read? A library is a center for community meetings, and support for literacy groups and training in English as a Second Language.
But there are potholes to fill, you say, and elderly to feed and thieved and drug addicts to jail, and maybe the Public Library stands low on your list. Shame on you then! Shame on us! The staffing of the District Library is down 40 percent from the mid- seventies. In those days, the public library accounted for 1.5 percent of the DC budget, and it’s staffed by 200 fewer librarians than 30 years ago. Why? Why? The proposed cuts will close four branches and reduce funding to a net of 1.3 million dollars.
We live in a city where 37 percent of the people are functionally illiterate—one in 10 cannot fill out a job application. They may as well be blind- imagine what it would look like: 15,000, 20,000, 25,000 blind people stumbling through the streets, groping, hands out, as they feel their way, blind, tapping our side walks with their white sticks—the functionally illiterate who basically cannot live.
Should we close the libraries down? Is that your response?
My brother-in-law is 80 years old. Every week her walks to his branch library in Georgetown and checks out a week of reading. A friend of mine works at the National Geographic. Every week she borrows books on tape. A woman from the White House (yes, the White House) calls the DC Public Library to ask a librarian for information from a reference book. She doesn’t try the Library of Congress- she goes to the DC Library. Where she can borrow a book. Browse in the stacks.
And then a personal story: My daughter was 12 years old before she could read. She was dyslexic. Letters swam around like fish before her eyes. She too was functionally illiterate. One day I took her to the library and checked out a Barbara Cartland novel. This is pure trash, okay? The virtuous heroine, the dark handsome rake who is redeemed by the pure love of a woman. My daughter read it all the way through to the end. She then proceeded to read 130 more Barbara Cartland novels, one after another. After that she could read. History, literature, and current events were at her disposal—the stories which our society is based; the newspapers that make her a useful citizen. Today she is a social worker, a therapist working in a public clinic. Why? Because of a library.
I urge you to support the DC public Library. It is an investment in our children, in our culture, in our political system, in our sanity.