Posted on: Thursday, June 3, 2004

EDITORIAL
State library system wasn't always like this

There's nothing sadder than a decimated library system, especially for those of us who recall childhoods when libraries provided a sanctuary from the noise and chaos, a channel to enter new worlds through the written word.

Unfortunately, though, when the budget ax swings, library services are among the first bastions of literacy to be massacred.

And that has been the case for the Hawai'i state library system, which has suffered severe reductions in staff and hours in recent years.

It wasn't always this way.

In 1879, the Honolulu Library and Reading Room Association ranked as the state's most successful subscription library, supported by such Hawaiian royalty as King Kalakaua, Queen Kapi'olani, Queen Emma and Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop. Kalakaua even provided tax exemptions and a land grant for a permanent site in downtown Honolulu.

The association morphed into the Library of Hawai'i, with a $100,000 grant from American industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, and a guarantee from the territorial Legislature of $10,000, among other donations.

The Carnegie Library officially opened to the public on Feb. 1, 1913, with 30,000 volumes. The first state librarian was Edna Allyn, helping smooth the transition from a private subscription library to a public library. The children's section of the Hawai'i State Library is named in her honor.

The Library of Hawai'i's mandate was to provide library service to all the islands in the territory through small deposit collections known as "traveling libraries," which were set up in communities, rural areas, sugar plantations, private homes and public schools.

Two years after it opened, there were 56 stations throughout the Islands. But the cost of transportation and other limitations led to the passage of the County Library Law of 1921, which established separate public libraries on Kaua'i, Maui and Hawai'i.

At statehood, the Legislature pulled together all the county libraries and established the only statewide public library system in the United States.

Today, budget cuts have forced the state library system to scale back hours and cancel its bookmobile service. Moreover, State Librarian Jo Ann Schindler says she has 108 vacant positions.

Fortunately, the Legislature hasn't completely abandoned the library system. Lawmakers approved $1 million for library books and $3.5 million to make libraries more accessible to the disabled. They also approved 19 staff positions to open the Kapolei Public Library. It's important to get the library in O'ahu's Second City functioning. The delay in getting it up and running has been an embarrassment.

We'll admit we don't know whence the money will come to revive our flagging library system. What we do know is that libraries, as hangouts, sanctuaries and educational hubs, are infinitely preferable to malls, movie theaters and other stomping grounds of today's kids. We need to invest in our library system.