This year’s Centre Gives campaign doubled the amount the Centre County Library received during last year’s campaign. That’s a bit over $3100 for 2014. When viewed as an increase over last years donations, it seems pretty awesome. More awesome still because Centre County Library no longer has to support the Millheim Library. What a bonus, right? SCHLOW on the leader board at #1 with 345 gifts and $37,221. Centre Co. Library:
58 gifts and $3135.Unless you live in Millheim. Or live somewhere that depends on families who benefited from the Millheim Library. The Centre County Libraries will continue to do the best they can for families across the county, but they did close the Millheim Library permanently. Permanently. Not as a week long, perfectly timed, promotional stunt.
The State College Library is available to the entire county, too, if you can get to State College. In fact, if you can get to State College, and get to their library, you can likely walk a few hundred yards and too, access Penn State’s Pattee/Paterno Library, which is free and available to everyone in Pennsylvania. What an abundance of resources!
All libraries are worth supporting: the services; the assets; the helpful, knowledgeable librarians. I listened to a research librarian address a small group of educators last year. Why we need libraries and librarians was so obvious. You can’t “just google” everything, but frequently, if you try, you’ll have no idea what you’re missing. Almost every day I see the patience, knowledgeability, and helpfulness of the librarians in Bellefonte. I can’t imagine them going away; but how can the rest of our relatively low income county support the library services the county needs?
CentreGives is now over, and I’m sure Schlow raked in an abundance of donations. They get to continue to compete with Pattee I guess. I wish them well. I really do.