Friday the Librarian

I love meeting a pet in the library or bookstore.  I think you must be deficient in some way if the sight of a cat curled up in sunny spot at the library doesn’t touch your soul.  You don’t meet pets in the library as often as you used to...I’m sure there are laws and regulations about this kind of enjoyment and no doubt there have been lawsuits.  But today I got lucky.  I stopped into the West Falls Colden Community Library near Kissing Bridge Ski Resort in WNY and was greeted at the door by a friendly spotted dog named Friday, I think he was a whippet.  What a perfect way to make a great first impression.  
I stopped at the Library, located at 2147 Davis Road in West Falls, after passing it for several years and assuming it was part of the Buffalo/Erie County system.  When I looked it up online I discovered, strangely enough, it was not, aha...a library mystery...how exiting!  
The two volunteers at the desk explained that the branch had been ‘downsized’ from the county system and was now run entirely by volunteers.  The adorable stone building is perched on the edge of the Cazenovia Creek and, it turns out, cannot be sold because it was given to the town specifically to be the library.  Now it is run by an all volunteer staff and funded by the non-profit group “Friends of the West Falls Library”.  
Is this the fate of our small rural libraries?  Will funding be eliminated and each town or village set free to fend for itself?  Or will branches be consolidated to larger communities?  Maybe we will return to Ben Franklin’s subscription library model and pay to belong (shudder)?   In New York State we are facing a huge deficit this year and everything is on the chopping block - but the library is the heart and soul of a community, essential to the lives of children, young families, the elderly and ME.  Sadly, I believe the trend will be to have libraries find private, voluntary funding sources in order to stay alive.  Which means the rich will get the libraries and the poor better get a bus schedule.   

Even though there is another library branch about 15 minutes away from West Falls, I got a comforting, if somewhat uneasy, feeling as I drove away knowing that at least this little stone library was open for business with Friday at the ready with a wag.  I hope their success is a sign of things to come.