A.G. Gancarski
The Jacksonville Public Library has had a rough decade. Ten years of budget cuts have taken the beleaguered JPL past the point of efficiency into the realm of austerity. However, of late there has been hope, says Barbara Gubbin, JPL director.
In welcoming Mayor Lenny Curry, Gubbin mentioned that she and her staff have been on “tenterhooks,” anticipating more cuts that would, if instituted, require perhaps a further reduction in hours, services, or staff.
The general mood of the library staff, after seeing the commitment of both the mayor and the Finance Committee, is “hugely grateful,” especially after an “exciting few weeks” that include “some very wonderful things for the library” in the new budget, including Tommy Hazouri‘s proposal, crafted with the JPL, to “rebuild” the library system, which was endorsed by that committee during the all-important budget review process.
Signalling either a commitment to the library or a need to get out of the office by taking the long, 100-yard walk from the front door of City Hall to the library’s main branch, the room was thick with council members and their staff, including Finance Chairman Bill Gulliford, Aaron Bowman, Jim Love, Al Ferraro, Doyle Carter, Sam Newby, Joyce Morgan, and Scott Wilson.
Gubbin provided a brief capsulized history of JAX READS! The program (which has variants throughout the country) started in 2002, with To Kill a Mockingbird. This year’s selection, the 2014 National Book Award winning Brown Girl Dreaming, covers a not dissimilar territory in its autobiographical account of how Jim Crow and the civil rights movement affected the author’s mother.
Though the book was targeted to teenagers, The Florida Times-Union Book Club will be reading it, said Gubbin, along with many in Jacksonville.
Gubbin then spoke of Curry’s commitment to the library itself, saying that “he supports the whole idea of learning and reading,” that “as a parent, he understands” the connection between reading, learning, and childhood development, and that his wife “Molly and their children use the San Marco branch library a lot.”
Then Curry spoke.
“I’m here today because I really believe in this,” said Curry, who has a copy of the book at home waiting to be read.
For Curry, reading is fundamental. Echoing themes he addressed when speaking to Operation Save Our Sons’ young men last month at City Hall, Curry spoke of how when he was young, he was “singularly focused on sports.”
At some point, a switch flipped for him. Books “opened [his] mind to a whole new world” for the mayor, showing him the positive effects of “ambition with purpose.”
“I’m here, I’m committed,” said Curry, who proclaimed that the book embodies the spirit of One City, One Jacksonville.
