America’s Libraries, Government at its Finest

David Martin: This is the good government show.

Avy Monyhan: I’m here because I’m studying with my tutor. I need a library. I think everybody does. I think a library helps a lot of people.

Scott Jarzombek: We are an American tradition and I think there’s a reason for that.

The best way to get a wide view of the world, to understand other’s lived experience, is to read a book with a character that doesn’t have your background, doesn’t look like you. It’s the uncertainty. That’s what’s really maddening about this is it makes there’s no rhyme or reason. It’s really performative politics. There’s not a good understanding of how we’re funded.

And I wish people kind of knew that, because then they’d probably speak to their elected officials differently.

David Martin: Imagine a place where you can go almost any time. You can get any book you want, maybe a new bestseller or a rare historical document. You could use a computer. You could print out pages. You could hold a meeting. Watch a movie. Learn to read. Or get free legal advice. And it’s all free. Sounds good. Right? Well, that sounds like a library.

Welcome to the good government show. I’m Dave Martin. First, to help us share the message of good government by liking us and sharing us where we are on Facebook x YouTube, Instagram and Blue Sky. Please share our show with your friends and reviews where you’re listening and join our good Government Show community. Check out our website for the link.

Libraries are part of the fabric of America. Ben Franklin had a hand in making books accessible for everyone in New England just after the revolution. Libraries were established and grew. Today, there are over 12,000 libraries in the US. They range from the Library of Congress. And if you’ve never been, go. Thomas Jefferson made a huge donation to get that library started.

There are also university libraries, big city libraries, and small town libraries, and they do a lot more than legit check out books. Funding for libraries is in danger. Cuts and more proposed cuts to the Institute of Museum and Library Services could have a massive effect on library services across the nation. The entire federal library budget is close to 0.01% of the federal budget, but cuts could come to things like reading programs, library staff, library hours, and things like job training services, autistic programs, and civic engagement.

Getting my first library card was a huge deal. That meant I could take out any book, read anything I wanted to, and be part of my town. And it was probably my first card with my name on it. My first I.D. card. We wanted to take a look at libraries, what they do and what they offer. I wanted to really talk about what’s going on in local libraries and see how they serve the community.

Earlier this summer, I went to the Fairfield, Connecticut Public Library. I got to look at what real public service is all about. First, I wanted to talk to some people who use the library like students.

Avy Monyhan: I’m Avy Monyhan. I go to Roger Ludlow and I’m in eighth grade. I’m here because I’m studying with my tutor.

David Martin: Why do you choose to come here?

Avy Monyhan: I just think it’s a very quiet place to learn. And then you’ll get to also see other people studying. And I think it’s, like, very motivational.

David Martin: Small business owners.

Karen Thompson: Karen Thompson I’m a travel advisor. I come to the library because I like the layout, I like it. The people here, the atmosphere, it’s easy for me to get information that I need due to my work. Whether it’s the copy machine, faxing books they’re running more knowledge on different countries or other places, it helps me.

David Martin: What do you love about this library?

Karen Thompson: Well, I like it that they have the tables where you can come. I have my laptop. I can use it. And they have different layouts here. Spaces where you can go if you want to be a little bit more quiet, you can go to the very end of the library. Or if you need to be in the front, you can get more help where they’re right there at the desk.

I, I need a library. I think everybody does. I think a library helps a lot of people. They have programs here where you can learn on whatever it is, whether you’re coming to bring your child to have a storytelling time or you’re coming for financial advice or a knitting group, whatever it is, I think it helps the community to get together.

David Martin: Adam Crook doesn’t have a home computer, so for him, the library’s is only option to have a quiet place to work. Go online and do what he needs to do to help himself.

Adam Crook: The libraries are essential for people like myself, and you know I don’t want to. I’m more of a broader scale. Yes. I mean, without the library, I wouldn’t be able to do any of this. I mean, it’s an essential resource for people like myself. Who need it and, you know, have no other option to stay home, to stay connected to the community and our families, and especially as a homeless person, it’s it’s it’s vital and it’s necessary.

And it’s also a comfortable place to be to. You know, there’s a lot of people here trying to study. A lot of the people that are employed by libraries have advanced degrees. PhDs. So they’re very smart people. And, you know, you can learn a lot from them.

David Martin: Here on The Good Government Show, we’ve talked about the range of library services. We talked to librarians who have mobile libraries, showers, special packages for kids on the spectrum who need more than a book. And when they host community events like concerts and guess don’t have to be two choir for the concert. I took a tour of the Fairfield, Connecticut library with Scott Carson back.

He’s the town’s librarian. He’s also the president of the Connecticut Library Association, which is part of the American Library Association. I wanted to find out what a local library means and what some of these cuts could do. You’re going to hear about how one library in one city in America uses its library. But really, this is an excellent example of what libraries across the country are doing.

This is what libraries are all about. You’re going to hear about how the people who work in libraries love what they do. You’ll hear that libraries are more than just books. If we lose libraries, we really will lose a part of what makes America great. So coming up, a tour of the library.

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I wanted to walk around the library a little bit. My first stop was in the children’s room that’s up on the second floor. But it’s not just one room. I’m going to let children’s librarian Tamara Lynn explain where we are.

Tamara Lynn: I’m Tamara Lynn. I’m headed children’s services here at the Fairfield Public Library. We are currently in the children’s library, which is on the second floor. The library itself was created to look like the town of Fairfield. So when you walk in, you see our lighthouse. That’s right behind the desk. And then if you come to your left, you’re going to go into the early literacy area where we have a book shop and the town green, and there’s a town hall sign that says, we were established, the town of Fairfield, in 1639.

Then we move over to the country shop part of the country store, and in the back we have the little farm, which is our, baby room. And we do have some farms here in Fairfield. And then we head over to the train station, because we have two train stops in the town, and in the back we have the castle.

Now, we’re not quite sure why they made the castle because we do not have a cat.

David Martin: So what’s the most popular room?

Tamara Lynn: The most popular room is probably the castle and little farm. Yeah. Why? Well, it’s a little farm is great for babies, and it’s kind of contains them. They can’t, like, really run out of there. And then the castle has a dollhouse, and it’s great for imagination play.

David Martin: She talked about what the kids come to the library for.

Tamara Lynn: We have about 11 early literacy. So that’s storytime or, music and movement programs that happen in the morning. And then in the afternoon. We have tons of K through fifth programing. So we might do slime or we might do a book club, all kinds of things like that. Computer programing, like, Girls Who Code. We have that program going on too.

And then our summer reading is coming up, which is huge. And, the kids go crazy for.

David Martin: Make sure you check out our show notes on our website. You can see the children’s library section. It’s an impressive library. Scott took me on a tour of the entire library. I walked by the DVD racks. Yes, lots of people still take out DVDs. I saw high school students sitting in the team room. It’s a quiet room. Look like a typical reading room in some private club, complete with a piano for nights when I have small concerts.

I saw kids studying together in private rooms, and I saw the conference room that appeared to look like any other conference room in a Wall Street office. Real business deals happen here. And I saw what they call memory bags. I’m going to let Scott explain. We’re standing here in front of the two racks of memory kits. Tell me what we’re looking at.

Scott Jarzombek: So, coming out of Covid, my staff recognized that we had older patrons who were showing a little bit of cognitive decline, and they really kind of dove into what goes on there and what resources that the library can create. And one thing that libraries have been doing across the country are these kits. It’s basically a bag of items that can be puzzles.

It can be audio visual. They’re they can be books. And they’re really for people to get to work on their mental plasticity. Just like the bags, you know, upstairs that we curated for the kids with books about social topics. It’s they kind of go through and every bag has something different in it. So that way people can come in, borrow one bag and they decide, hey, I want to borrow a bag with puzzles.

And at this time, or the audio player in it.

David Martin: The bags have proved to be popular. It all started with librarians seeing a need for something from the community.

Scott Jarzombek: You know what? Librarians do really well as curate collections. And so those are book bags that are full of books on one specific topic. This time around, it’s being community wellness. But also if you look, there’s some topics like what happens when you have a new sibling or when you have the loss of a loved one, or divorce and separation.

So it’s the topics that are really heavy and kind of put these kids together. So you can just come in the library, grab the bag if it’s a particular topic and you borrow it, and it really helps with the situation that you’re in. And my staff do this really because over the years they were getting all these questions like we talked about, you know, the passing of a pack.

And so they said, you know what? Let’s create these kinetic collections, put them in a bag, make it so that people can easily borrow them.

David Martin: My conversation with Scott Carson back the town librarian is coming up. The Good Government Show is sponsored by our. That’s. Oh, you are for our community. Get involved. We hear that all the time from government leaders. Our co-branded with your governments name and logo. Your staff and the people you serve are connected and part of your community. From any device your members provide reliable data and meaningful feedback.

Ask a question like, do we want more parkland or better homeless services? More engaged conversations come through the our app. Visit our Co that’s ou rco.com and book a demonstration. I sat down with Scott and we discussed how modern libraries work, who uses the library and who are the people that help us check out the books and more.

And of course, we talked about libraries future, especially right now. First, I want to talk nationally about libraries. There’s lots of discussion about libraries, about library services, especially about cutting library services. You know, I have a list here of things that libraries do offer literacy programs, job training. They provide a location for civic engagement. They work with teens on mental health issues.

There’s lots of autistic services. We’ve talked about that. I’ve talked to people who have installed showers in their libraries. I know someone here had talked about, about their computer using the printer service here. People come up for online help. You know, we talked about other things. I mean, what have I missed? And, you know, what are all the things that libraries provide?

It’s way more than just books.

Scott Jarzombek: Well, you know, I like to consider libraries like the front line of democracy. If there’s not a free flow of information, if everybody doesn’t have the same access to information, whether that being a book or via the internet, I don’t know if you can really have a democracy. And libraries have done a really good job over the years of cultivating and curating collections that are balanced but are accurate information.

We are an American tradition, and I think there’s a reason for that. And there’s a reason why. If today someone was to come up with the concept of a public library, if there weren’t public libraries and someone was to come up with that concept, it would get shot down so quickly. That would be terrible. Yes. And but it would, it would be to get shot down.

I mean, these are shared resources. These are the best use of tax dollars. Some of the most balanced use of tax dollars. And it’s some of the most public facing government service. I see that all the time. When people bring up customer service, they don’t we don’t do customer service. We’re still a municipal entity, and we have policies and procedures that people need to follow.

But we’re an open space that makes everyone feel welcome. They just have to follow those rules.

David Martin: And it keeps me quiet. Is the library still right?

Scott Jarzombek: You know, be quiet in some rooms as you learn today. Yes. There’s some rooms. You don’t have to be quiet in the library. You can be as loud as you want. There’s bands, there’s comedy shows. So it’s a cultural hub. But most of all, it’s just it is about making sure everyone has the same access to information across the board.

No matter you know, your class, your race or your ethnicity.

David Martin: How long have libraries been a part of the American fabric?

Scott Jarzombek: Well, I mean, it’s it’s public libraries. I mean, libraries have been a part of culture for, you know, for centuries. But public libraries really became part of municipal governments in the 1920s. We all hear about Carnegie. We know who Carnegie was. People often get confused and think Carnegie was an architect or style of architecture for libraries. No.

Carnegie was someone who had a lot of money and decided that libraries.

David Martin: Carnegie, Carnegie.

Scott Jarzombek: Still steel. He traveled the country because he thought public libraries were important in what he did, which, you know, not everybody’s a fan. But there’s one thing that he did that I really liked, which is he would go to the municipality and say, I will give you money to build a building, but you have to make sure that that building is funded.

Those staff is funded every year. You really created the concept of a public libraries, has a town department or a district of the municipality. And that’s huge. And that happened in the 20s. And many of the great successful libraries around the country took Carnegie money and went forward with it.

David Martin: So there’s something called the Institute of Museum and Library Services. This is from the federal government, and my understanding is they operate on a $290 million budget. And of that money, 160 million goes directly to the nation’s libraries. If that money goes away, what happens?

Scott Jarzombek: Well, it depends on the state. So in Connecticut, how that will damages isn’t directly through funding. It’s not like our funding will be reduced. How can I get gets around $2 million and it takes that money and hire staff to do capacity building. So there’s a wonderful group of people who work at the State Library who train my staff, who make sure that we have resources that we may not be able to get ourselves, who have a lending library for libraries.

And what that does is make sure that library services equitable across the state. Here in Fairfield, we have a lot of support, and so we can be open all sorts of hours and have a great robust collection like you’ve seen with cats and technology. I live in a municipality which I think underfunded. Its libraries and the hours are bad.

My kids ride their bikes there and go dad, libraries closed again. Great staff, pretty good collection. But you know, not every municipality funds their libraries as much as they should. And what the state library does is it make sure that there’s capacity so those libraries can do a little bit of extra, more than a little bit to do extra work and are trained to be the best professionals that they can be.

David Martin: And if some of this money goes away, you know, we talked about, teen mental health or, and I know that we’ve talked to other people at libraries that have like autistic programs and autistic learning kits and autistic learning, sessions. That goes away. What happens?

Scott Jarzombek: Well, then it puts pressure on our capacity and our funding. So if there’s a service that is being provided at state level, like databases that we use to answer reference questions, the question becomes if the funding goes away and that is taken away, are we able to afford it on our own? How do we and how do we build that into our budget?

Again, the training and the capacity building. My staff get trained by the state library staff will be missing those things, and then we’ll have to use our own local budget to then pay for those things. And it doesn’t make sense, because if you do it at a state level, you can impact so many people. Your return on investment is so much better if you do it at a state level.

Whereas if we’re all doing it at a local level, it’s going to be more expensive and it could be a bigger waste of taxpayer and.

David Martin: Something’s going to get cut.

Scott Jarzombek: Oh, things are going to get cut without a doubt. And you know what’s so nefarious about cutting library funding is that it creates a narrative. You hear this narrative who uses libraries anymore, right? And I always laugh because in Connecticut there are 1.2 million cardholders. That means one third of the population, one out of every three people have a library card, which means that they use the library at least once a month or once a year, and some of them use it every day.

So when you start cutting that funding and those services get pulled back, then the argument becomes, well, people don’t use libraries as much as they used to. They don’t because the library is not open. And it’s kind of this cycle that happens that I’ve seen multiple times where it’s like there’s some engineering behind this. It really is like you’re making it.

So we’re going to fail. So you can make an argument to fund this even less.

David Martin: How concerned are you about some of the censorship that’s going on? I mean, two books that I noticed, one is To Kill a mockingbird, Harper Lee Great American Classic Novel, and, Julianne Moore’s, the actress wrote a book called Freckle Faced Strawberry about growing up as a redhead. I mean, we take those books away. What happens?

Well, first of all, fiction is a great way to learn about the world. And, you know, I was a teen librarian and children’s librarian. The best way to get a wide view of the world to understand others lived experience is to read a book with a character that doesn’t have your background, doesn’t look like you. Doesn’t have the life experiences that you do.

Scott Jarzombek: I do that as a kid. Some of it was comic books. But it was, you know, I got to.

David Martin: I did see issues of that magazine to the right.

Scott Jarzombek: Okay, I got you get this different life perspective. What’s so scary about the challenges that are happening today is they’re often challenging books that have characters who they’re not happy with, their kids being exposed to their life experience. LGBTQ plus books are getting challenged left and right, books about, American history that might talk about the Black or Hispanic experience.

Those books are being challenged. And and we always had book challenges in libraries, always. You know, as a director, I didn’t want to.

David Martin: Mean Mark Twain was banned. Oh, yeah.

Scott Jarzombek: Mark Twain, you wrote books? Accepted. Yeah. Protected. Banned.

David Martin: But back when he wrote them, they were controversial in some parts of the country. Right.

Scott Jarzombek: And now we’re getting these book challenges that are, you know, I call them astroturfing. These individuals are coming with lists of books that they didn’t read, but they’re getting it from a social media post, and they’re deciding, I’m going to be, you know, I’m going to fight the good fight, and I’m going to challenge this material. We had 130 challenges last year in Connecticut, and it was a lot of stress, and it’s a lot of stress on the staff, and it really hurts the capacity of the library of the organization.

David Martin: You are the president of the Connecticut Library Association, and you’re also a member of the American Library Association. I guess you’re the president of the American Library Association said that these cuts are ridiculous and shortsighted. Do you agree?

Scott Jarzombek: Oh, absolutely arbitrary and done in ways in which it doesn’t make any sense unless they’re trying to create confusion, because this is making it difficult for libraries to plan out the next year or two years, because there’s going to be pressure on municipal budgets. So I’m already we just went through our budget process for the next fiscal year.

I’m already thinking about the year after because it’s my concerns are okay if we have to start paying for these additional services, where am I going to get that money from? And, you know, you have to remember that these it’s not just about the cuts with the emails. It’s also about the cuts for, you know, the arts, because we could grants there.

It’s, you know, block grants, libraries get public libraries get money from block grants. And then it’s the cuts that are going to affect the town, because if all of a sudden there’s $2 million for education for the schools or for public safety, then that town has to look at its budget. And libraries are almost always first on the chopping block.

And so we’re really concerned.

David Martin: You’re going to keep it cop long before you keep a library.

Scott Jarzombek: Yeah. And so we’re really concerned about what our local funding is going to look like in the future. Just do all this pressure. But it’s the uncertainty. That’s what’s really maddening about this. It’s it makes there’s no rhyme or reason. It’s really performative politics. And it’s just what is next year look like? We don’t know. And it’s difficult to plan.

David Martin: Have there been threats against librarians at schools or, you know, in Connecticut and, you know, nationwide?

Scott Jarzombek: Oh, absolutely. We had a book challenge here where my my job was threatened by multiple people. I was at a press conference, for one particular party talking about books that they wanted removed from the library. And groomer was used. I counted 12 times that this elected official use the term grooming. And we’ve seen it. I have staff and I have friends who have been threatened either online or in person.

I physically put myself between one of my staff members and someone at a meeting where there was a book challenge. It’s it’s scary and it’s it’s making a lot of us hesitant about being in a leadership position, because I don’t want my kids to get bullied because their dad, you know, doesn’t want to ban books about this particular subject.

And it’s really something we have to think about. And it makes us, hasn’t it, to, to do your, you know, this podcast.

David Martin: Oh, thanks for doing it.

Scott Jarzombek: Yeah. Because we don’t want to be singled out.

David Martin: Right. How do you how do you deal with that. How do you manage that. How do you respond to that kind of thing?

Scott Jarzombek: Well, I think I’m a light a lot of librarians I came into this. I grew up in a very, religious household, the Catholic household. It was all about, helping people and being in service. That’s what I took away from my upbringing. Okay. So this job for me is perfect. I get to do so many things that I love, but I’m helping people.

I think most librarians are like that.

David Martin: So you’re not in it for the money?

Scott Jarzombek: We’re not in it for the money. So.

David Martin: But you were in for the press. For the glory. Yeah.

Scott Jarzombek: No, none of those things. I mean, it’s like to to help someone on the computer, I’m going to, like, have a great conversation about a book or do a comedy show or do a fashion show. That’s why I’m going to bring culture to the community. So we kind of have this really great anchor of what we do is important.

Like what we do is is helping maintain democracy.

David Martin: And this is public service.

Scott Jarzombek: And it’s public service. So we, you know, we do a good job of stepping away, but also we support each other. I’m president of CLA because when we had our book challenge, I was like, oh my God, I’m going to have to move back to New York. Like I’m losing my job. The president of CLA at the time called called me.

It was just like, hey, that tell me what you need. Tell me if you need me to show up in meetings. Walk me through what’s going on, and then, hey, you need to call Sam. Who’s the, you know, the chair of the from, you know, freedom of information committee. And I called Sam and she walked me through what I should do and what laws there were in Connecticut.

So librarians were kind of like a subculture, and we kind of backed each other up and were there for each other because we believe in what we do.

David Martin: Let’s talk a little bit about this library. We’ve just walked through this Fairfield Town Library, the public library here, just some of the things I saw. We went through the art gallery. We have a photo exhibit. You told me you have fashion shows in there. We went to the quiet room that looks like a large, overstuffed chair, in some, you know, private club where there’s a piano.

You do press conferences there and, other, civic engagement you have. We walk by some, you know, like little small study rooms, and it looks like you have some corporate boardrooms here, a lot of tutors here with lots of kids. What have I.

Scott Jarzombek: Missed? You know, the the big thing that we do here is early literacy programing. Our children’s room is gorgeous. It’s often, something room that people spend the entire day in, which can be a challenge in itself. But my children staff here do this amazing job where we’re doing a storytime almost every morning. I mean, most libraries do storytime once a week, and those storytimes are so popular that they fill up.

And we have to have actually have what we call the library bouncer. One of the librarians has to stand at the door and be like, I’m sorry you didn’t make registration. We can’t let you in because the rooms at full capacity, we go down to the green. We do. Storytime is a singing stop program at the Green 300 to 400 people at those programs.

It’s just it’s amazing. I mean, this highly literate, supportive community. And then we do the same thing with teens. We have a really active teen base and a really active, amazing teen librarians, and they do all this work with the youth. And then on the flip side of that, we have book clubs. We have mahjong, we have tai chi, we have a walking program for older adults.

So this library’s is, you know, the biggest complaint I get about this library is the parking lot and the lack of parking. But it amazes me every day I come in and we’re doing something new. I can’t remember everything we’re doing, and I’m incredibly proud of the work that we do here.

David Martin: If you start to lose money, if your budget starts to get cut, what gets cut? What what would the loss be?

Scott Jarzombek: The loss will be we get a much. We’d have much smaller collection. And there’s additional pressures on our collection development budget like ebooks. I Connecticut just, got through some, SP 1234, which is, work that, it is a bill that will help us with ebooks, but this is becoming increasingly expensive. So we worry about a reduction in budget, but also products that we need to buy for our patrons.

That’ll be so much more money. So we’re good about kind of reducing across the board. So it will probably mean one less evening that we’re open. It will probably mean one less story time in the morning and a few less multiple copies of a book. But again, once we do that, the demand is so high we start to lose numbers and it’s almost like, you know, it’s a feedback loop, like, okay, now we’re closed Thursday night.

We’re getting 300 less visitors during the week. It’s harder to make an argument to fully fund this.

David Martin: That has a huge impact.

Scott Jarzombek: Huge on the community. On our seniors, on our teens, somewhere to go. I mean, for many of our teens in this community, this is the spot to go for many of our older adults who are on fixed incomes. This is a part of their day. It’s my mom. My mom is, you know, it’s the library is it’s just built into her schedule.

It gives her something to do. And I’d hate to see that go away or be restricted or modified so that we’re not open when people need us open.

David Martin: Yeah. My dad used to go to the library, you know, that was his thing. He was down a couple of times a day or a couple of times a week, rather. And, you know, he would read the paper, read magazines and check stuff out. And, you know, he was he was a regular attender of the library. You talked about a lot of the different projects that you’ve got going on here.

And one of the things I thought was interesting is you have a huge DVD collection. I haven’t rented a DVD in ages. Are you still renting DVDs?

Scott Jarzombek: Absolutely. They’re so popular because.

David Martin: Renting is the wrong word.

Scott Jarzombek: Check is checking out borrowing, for free. For free. And it’s, you know, it comes down to, you know, not everybody can afford every streaming service. And there are movies that aren’t on streaming services that we still have available in a physical format. And then again, there’s still a digital divide. The digital divide has been made a little bit better with cell phones, but if you want to watch, you know, something on a large screen.

We still have our DVD player, we still pull DVDs out when we want to watch The West Wing, because we particularly subscribe to the service that has that show, and there’s.

David Martin: No blockbuster box.

Scott Jarzombek: And there’s no blockbuster, and there’s only a few red boxes around, and red box is not cheap. So, it always amazes me. I mean, it’s definitely back in the day when I first started as a librarian, DVDs were kind of. That’s why our circulation went through the roof. But it’s still there. And again, it’s that idea of, digital literacy and digital divide.

We’re sitting in a makerspace right now, so there’s 3D printers and there’s all this technology that our that’s around us. Yeah. Right outside that door is a fax machine and a copy machine. So libraries and, you know, my former library still had a typewriter out. And it’s the idea of everybody moves up in technology at different speeds. And the public libraries across the country do an amazing job of making those resources, making sure those resources are still there.

And that people can still use them.

David Martin: And do people still check out books?

Scott Jarzombek: Absolutely. You know, this library is an outlier. Our circulation is one of the highest in the state. I, I came from a city library that didn’t circulate as many books as this library. Okay. So in certain communities and certain pockets. Absolutely. But more importantly, children’s books are still incredibly popular.

David Martin: Sure.

Scott Jarzombek: And for parents. Well, kid.

David Martin: Reads a book for a year, and then they’re they’re done with it. And. Yeah, yeah, we move on. So you take it to the library and it’s easier, cheaper, freer. And.

Scott Jarzombek: Yeah. And you can you can get assistance. Right. You know, you can you can walk up to the children’s librarian and say, hey, what are some new picture books about this particular subject? And we’re here to help.

David Martin: Or where are the books for, you know, six year olds? Yes. You got stuck over there. Oh, yeah. What’s the most popular thing that people take out of the library?

Scott Jarzombek: Well, it really matters on the library here. It’s just new fiction. New fiction. We can’t keep on the shelf. There are days where I. I look on the computer, say, oh, the book’s supposed to be on the shelf, and I walk over to the shelf, and it’s in somebody’s hands. Okay. So, you know, books are still incredibly popular adult books, but also e-books.

And what’s great about e-books is it means that we can provide library service 24/7. Sure. So if you want to borrow material, you can borrow it at two in the morning. You just have to go to our digital collection. That’s becoming increasingly popular, especially the audio format.

David Martin: If people want to invest in libraries. And by that I mean, if people want to show how important libraries are and support libraries, what should they do?

Scott Jarzombek: So there’s a couple different things that they can do. First, most public libraries have a friends group that is a nonprofit entity that really just does fundraising and fundraising. Our friends group here is incredible. And they have underwritten almost like $40,000 in programing and expenses. So you can join your friends group if you want to do some volunteering or if you want to do some fundraising.

But really more importantly, you need to speak to your elected officials and let them know the importance of libraries and if you have the time and the expertise, every library is run by a board.

David Martin: Okay.

Scott Jarzombek: It’s again, why libraries are so incredibly democratic. So if you really believe in the library and you want to give some time to a library, think about running for if it’s an election or an an appointment, think about joining your library board, because that’s where the policy work is done. That’s where we make sure we have the resources so that the library can do the great job that it does.

So in getting engaged in that way, you either have at a governance level or volunteering with the friends. If you can’t do either of those things, use the library. Absolutely. But if you’re using like, well, you.

David Martin: You didn’t say get a library card, I would say that first.

Scott Jarzombek: You don’t need a library card to use library. Even better. You know, you don’t. When I, whenever I explain the 1.2 million cardholders, I know that we have people who walk in the library who don’t have a library card because they like to use this as a third space. You know, there they don’t you don’t need a library card for a program.

So, yes, get a library card. But more important than that, talk to your elected officials and remind them how important libraries are not only to your community, but to democracy. A large all right.

David Martin: We’re going to come back and we’re going to get to the heart of your idea of being in government. We’re going to do that in just a moment.

Once you wrap up this episode of The Good Government Show, give a listen to our friends over at Good News for lefties. This daily podcast highlights news stories that show there’s more good news out there. Other people in government are really trying to do the right thing. That’s good news for lefties. Listen, we’re listen now.

All right. So we have this good government show question. You know that I ask people who are in government and we’re going to it’s going to be a little different because you’re not the mayor of Fairfield. But we’ll we’ll go for it anyway. So you are the public library and you’re the town librarian for the city of Fairfield, Connecticut.

What’s good Government?

Scott Jarzombek: Good government is one that is responsive but not responsive to the loud the loud minority that can see trends in its community be a part of its community and understand it’s not always people speaking at public meetings that are cheering the full voice of the community, but being out there having enough conversations so you understand who you’re serving.

David Martin: If people think that the library should be doing different things and let’s let’s throw a caveat in there constructively saying that the library should be doing different things, what should they do?

Scott Jarzombek: You can go to board meetings. There’s usually public comment at board meetings. I’m having a make an appointment with your director. I’m meeting with a member of the public on Monday. The library directors. We are all about running our organizations, serving the community. So just call up your library and say, hey, who do I speak to about programing or who do I speak to about books?

A library director is more than likely, or the head of adult services or the head of children’s Services will love to meet with you to hear your ideas. And, you know, it could be as simple as an email, but it can also be an in person meeting or coming to a board meeting.

David Martin: We discussed this little bit earlier. I know that you became a librarian for the money in the same, but what drew you to become a librarian? I mean, what drew you into this, this service?

Scott Jarzombek: So I was, I grew up in a rural community. I grew up on a potato farm. And I got very much into punk rock. So I was a beer and comic books. And I also had an IEP. I had a learning disability growing up. So the library was kind of the perfect place for me. My mom, I did storytimes, you know, I did a summer camp.

You know, anything my mom could get me into because also, it was free. It’s great. You know, we go once a week because it was somewhere to go on a Wednesday night. But as I got older with purple hair with purple, well, no purple hair, but some mohawks. Okay. As I got older, there was a comic book club.

I participated in that. So shout out to Riverhead Free Library and on the eastern end of Long Island, as a teenager, the public library was the space that we could go to that we felt, the safest couldn’t go to the rec center. Rec center. We were looked down on the rec center, its public library. Everybody left us alone.

And so we really, like, grew to love it and respect it. We were not a space. We were against all authority except for maybe our moms and the public library. All right. So it made me passionate about libraries. I never thought about working in them until I went into college and worked at a university library, and at the end of my degree, my director at the time was just like, Scott, you should go to library school.

You were, you know, you’re kind of made for this. And that’s how I ended up here.

David Martin: Was he right?

Scott Jarzombek: She was. She was. Randy is usually right. She’s made she’s she’s responsible for a few library leaders in in Connecticut, actually.

David Martin: What would you like people to know that they don’t know about a library and how it works?

Scott Jarzombek: Well, one that were a municipal service, I think most people think were nonprofits and were not. The majority of our budgets come from tax dollars. And this seems to be the thing that when I run into and have a conversation with people, they don’t understand, I can tell you that we don’t make money from, late fines and late fees.

I don’t I don’t, I mean.

David Martin: You have late.

Scott Jarzombek: We have them here in my house.

David Martin: I gotta ask how many.

Scott Jarzombek: I think it’s like 10 or $0.15. I don’t even pay attention because by the time by the end, by the end of the by the end of the year, we’ve only made like $30,000, which would be a small percentage of our budget.

David Martin: Is literally 6000.

Scott Jarzombek: Yeah. That was that’s about it in Albany, we got rid of late fees and I had some come to my come to my office worried they were going to lose their job. Like, how are we going to pay for everybody? And I sat down, I go, if you look at our budget, but we take in the late fees, it’s like 0.01% of our budget.

So there’s not a good understanding of how we’re funded. And I wish people kind of knew that because then they probably speak to their elected officials differently.

David Martin: And let’s just say for, for for sake of argument, you run up $2 in late fees. It’s a library usually ready to make a deal.

Scott Jarzombek: And I can’t speak for everyone. Right. But we’re we can be flexible.

David Martin: Okay. That’s good. We’ll leave it there. That. What’s the best part of your job?

Scott Jarzombek: People and serving people. And, you know, doing things that you can actually see an impact on the community. For me, as a library director, I just love the leadership role. Managing librarians is the best. I’m a coach. I’m not a manager. There’s no top down hierarchy. It’s really about I just have incredible, talented people and it’s just great to help them achieve things that, you know, are just outside the box.

So it’s when I see somebody leave the library happy after a program or from getting a book. That’s the best part of my job.

David Martin: When you see the headlines about cuts to libraries, what are you most concerned about, or is it is it cuts? Is it is it censorship? You know, what are you most concerned about?

Scott Jarzombek: It’s cuts. And it’s almost always cuts that come with reducing hours for some reason, the people who have the power when it comes to municipal budgets think that the library should be a great way to save money is to close the library after 5:00. There are tons of people in the library here between 5 and 8, so it’s really frustrating.

That becomes like a really lazy solution. And if you really drill down, it does not seem that much money. So that’s my biggest concern because I really do love the library as a public space. I don’t want that to be reduced.

David Martin: What are you reading now?

Scott Jarzombek: I just finished, Oh gosh, this is awesome. This is, aren’t I a lot of nonfiction books in the hopper, but, I’m currently reading the 12th, which is a post-apocalyptic book about vampires. I’m not a big horror reader. I’m a big sci fi reader, and I’m a huge post-apocalyptic fiction reader.

David Martin: So this goes back to the punk rock.

Scott Jarzombek: This goes back to the book and watching the news today. So, that’s the current and I think it’s Cronin is the author’s name, but, yeah, that’s what I’m currently reading and really enjoying.

David Martin: What library books are your house right now?

Scott Jarzombek: So I don’t know what my kids currently hang out, and whatever they have out is probably late, probably a book and fishing and probably some manga. I usually borrow nonfiction from the library, and it’s funny because I’ll borrow it, and then if I really like it and I want to add it to my collection, then I buy it, which is I think publishers understand that, that a lot of times we’re the best marketing for publishers.

David Martin: How big is your home library?

Scott Jarzombek: If you’re not counting the boxes of books in my mom’s house. Not huge. Just because, you know, as when you’re a library administrator, you move a lot. So, you know, when you change jobs, you don’t get to change jobs in the same town. So, like, I, you know, I gotta count, but it’s really it’s not as robust as I would like it to be.

And again, it would be probably twice, three times the size if all the books in my mom’s house were in my house.

David Martin: My wife constantly comes down to my room in my little office where I have, and she’s like, do you really need all these.

Scott Jarzombek: Books just like you do?

David Martin: Yes, I do, yes I do. What do you think libraries and the Fairfield Library means to the cities in the town that they’re in? What is the real impact of the library?

Scott Jarzombek: We’re the cultural hub, you know, where the public space, but also we’re we’re a little bit, we’re a small part of the safety net. Your printer dies at home. You’re running to the public library. I do this, although we don’t have a printer in my house. So every time we need something premium, like, I guess I get, I got to run down to the public library.

Your internet goes down, you know, during, you know, Superstorm Sandy, there were so many of these libraries that remained open, found a way to remain open their library. I was running at the time. I found the way to remain open, and we became the only space in town that people have heat. So people had a way to connect on the internet.

So we provide that space in good times and bad times. Also, public libraries serve people from zero to at the end of their life, maybe beyond the end of their life. We’re the only service that serves babies. Serves your babies before they’re born, but also serves people as has. They’re reaching the end of their life and also serves their family when the end of that life has been arranged.

So we serve everyone at every aspect.

David Martin: Is the money spent on libraries government money well spent?

Scott Jarzombek: Absolutely. I think it’s some of the best money that’s spent. Again, that free flow of information, those services that are provided, that public space, just having a well-maintained public space. And that’s a lot of our job, a lot of our job is maintaining a public space that’s not cheap. You need people. You can’t do that with volunteers.

Toilet paper is expensive. You all know that. Yeah. Keeping the space clean is incredibly important. These rugs need to be cleaned all the time. So the amount of traffic that we have coming in, furniture breaks, providing that public space is not cheap, but it’s so incredibly important. It means so much to so many individuals.

David Martin: This is the good government show. We always like to end it with a good government, an action story. Tell me about something a library is doing either here in Fairfield or, you know, in your position as president of the Connecticut Library Association, that just people would be shocked to find out that a library.

Scott Jarzombek: Provides a one library service that people don’t realize or take as much advantage of as they should is the makerspace, is the tools that are in the library and also the library of things like we’re growing a library of things, collection badminton equipment that some libraries have. Take pants. We don’t just loan books, we loan items, we loan technology.

And then we have that technology here that can be used. I don’t think people realize that. I don’t think it’s there necessarily. There are there are some people there are some librarians right now are like, oh my gosh, we can’t take any more people in our makerspace. But, you know, come in and ask, come in and ask what services are there?

And most importantly, early literacy programs. If you have a child in your life, you’re a grandparent, an aunt or an uncle, or they’re your kids, bring them to storytime. Create that attachment, that stories and reading and reading out loud and books our sign of affection that will create recreational readers and that will bring up the literacy rate in this country, which I believe at this point is like sixth grade level.

So we have some work to do there.

David Martin: We have some work to do if we’re at a sixth grade level. Yes. Scott Jars are back. You’re the town librarian of the Fairfield Public Library and the president of the Connecticut Library Association. Excellent conversation about libraries. Keep doing the good work. And, we appreciate it. I always love going to the library as a kid, and I took my daughter when she was a kid.

So thank you for your public service. And, thanks for coming on the show.

Scott Jarzombek: Thanks for giving a voice to libraries.

David Martin: After you get done with this episode, hear more good government stories with our friends at How to Really Run a City for mayors. Kasim Reed of Atlanta and Michael Nutter of Philadelphia, and their co-host, journalist and author Larry Platt talk with guests and other mayors about how to really get stuff done in cities around the nation. Check them out where you’re listening now or through their nonprofit news site, The Philadelphia Citizen.

Dot org slash podcasts.

If we lose our libraries, we lose more than a place to check our books. These are vital sectors. The community kids use them. Parents, adults and seniors. For some people, libraries are a lifeline. For some, it’s a sanctuary. Now go visit your local library. Let’s all help keep libraries alive and well. Libraries are not good government. They are the best of government.

Well, that’s our show. Thanks for listening. Please like us and share this with your friends and our viewers right here. We’re listening and check out our website. Good government show.com for extras and show notes. Help us keep telling stories of good government and action everywhere. Join us again for another episode right here. I’m Dave Martin and this is the Good Government show.

The Good Government show is a Valley Park production. Jim Ludlow, Dave Martin, that’s me and David Snyder are the executive producers. Our show is edited and produced by Jason Stershic. Please subscribe, then share and like us and review us. That’s the best way to make sure we’re able to keep telling these stories of our government working for all of us.

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**This transcription was created using digital tools and has not been edited by a live person. We apologize for any discrepancies or errors.