Op-Ed: For The Love of Libraries
by Charla Grenz Solheim, WashCo Dems Communications Committee Member
A library and its one librarian saved me.
In Geraldine, Montana, a town of 300 people, there was not much to occupy my brain growing up. We had no streetlights. Only one paved road. And about five TV channels. But we had a library.
It all began one summer when an older boy challenged me to a competition for the summer reading challenge. Who could read the most books? Spoiler alert: I won.
After that, I counted the library as my personal oasis. My escape plan. And my travel agent. No matter what was going on in my life, good or bad, I always had the library.
The librarian would get books for me from other libraries. She would make recommendations. She gave me all the back issues of Seventeen magazine or National Geographic.
Without libraries, who knows how I would’ve turned out. I went on to get an MA in English with a focus on poetry, and now I write for a living.
Fast-forward to Seattle, 2003. I had just moved there with a graduate degree, some teaching experience, and no job. I didn’t have a computer or laptop, so I went to the local library I could walk to in Ballard to look for jobs online. I didn’t end up finding a job there, but the free Internet was a life-saver for me.
When my daughter was born in Portland, she had a library card when she was only months old. The librarian said that maybe she was the youngest library card holder she’d ever seen. That’s how important libraries are to me.
When she was older, I remember one particular trip. She kept asking, can I get another book? Because she was used to only getting books from a bookstore. And I had to tell her several times that yes, take as many books as you want. It’s the library. It’s all free.
Our local library inside the Garden Home Rec Center (which used to be a school) is one of my favorite spots in my little neighborhood. They always have a jigsaw puzzle set up. A friendly yellow gnome. And kind, helpful people working there.
Throughout my life, libraries have served as a homing beacon. A refuge from the storm. And the place I keep returning to, over and over.
Libraries are one of the last refuges for democracy. The belief that anyone should have free access to information is a cornerstone of what makes this country we call America great. They’ve been around since before America was an independent nation with one of our founding fathers, Ben Franklin, opening the first lending library in 1731, 45 years before we declared independence. The first free public library opened in New Hampshire, the Live Free or Die state, in 1833.
In a world where books are being censored or outright banned in school libraries across the country, there’s never been a more important time to keep them alive and going strong.
The Library Levy, Washington County, Oregon’s Measure 34-345 will help keep the library open, maintained, and going strong for five more years until 2031. Coincidentally, that’ll be the 300th anniversary of Ben Franklin’s first lending library.
I plan to vote Yes on Measure 34-345 on my November 5, 2025 ballot. There’s a convenient dropbox right outside the Garden Home library. I hope you’ll do the same.
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