Letter: Library fee is food for the brain

To the community,

For the price of for lattes or four beers or three glasses of wine a year, voters can keep our library open five days a week.

Many of us are fortunate enough to have home computers and Internet, which means that we can download audio books and ebooks for no cost with our library cards. There are many students and others who are not as fortunate. Keeping computers and Internet available for those who don’t have home access is important. Good schools, a library, and beauty improve a community. Beauty we have, the library we could lose. This community uses our library every day: 1,700 people visit our library every week, 130,000 items are borrowed every year and 14,000 locals have library cards.

Rather than buy a best seller that we’ll read only once, we can borrow from the library, at no cost. Current newspapers, magazines, & a great collection of DVDs are available. Even my dog appreciates the free audio books as I take her for longer walks when I’m listening to a story.

About 25 years ago our library lost much of its budget and the hours were reduced to two days a week. There’s a very real chance that this could happen again. Please vote yes on Measure L to keep our library open at its current level.

Diana Hamilton, South Lake Tahoe