Bozeman News

The Long-Awaited Library Opening

Bozeman’s New Celebration of the Human Mind

By Marjorie Smith, 11-21-06

It was without question the nastiest letter I’d ever received in almost 20 years of writing a bi-weekly column for the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. It was vitriolic, vicious and extremely personal, although the person the writer was describing had very little in common with me. And yet the accusations were so specific I had to wonder who they had me confused with.

But I was certainly the one who had written the column that set the poison ink to flowing. And what was the subject of that particular column?

The new Bozeman Public Library. My column appeared a couple months before the new library opened, and I wrote it in response to a friend who had asked, “Why is everyone so angry about the new library?”

My friend gets most of her local news coverage from talk radio. “What are they saying?” I asked.

“That it has less space than the current library. That it’s only one story inside although it towers over Lindley Park. That there’s almost no space where the public will be allowed. That it won't be done for years.”

Let it be said, before we go any further, that those are all lies. Let is also be said that the library opened on November 12 and that it is absolutely gorgeous. It’s been a long, long time since I have felt so proud to be a citizen of Bozeman.

“You know what they’re calling it on talk radio?” my friend had said. “Alice’s Palace.”

I suggested that perhaps one reason people were angry was because they couldn’t stand to see a woman in a position of power. As Library Director for the past nine years, Alice Meister has certainly been a woman in power on this particular project.

But in a way, the building IS a palace – a wonderful tribute to this community’s love of books and of learning. It’s a prominent public celebration of the intellect.
As Bozeman Mayor Jeff Krauss said before he cut the ribbon on November 12:

“In our country, love of books is synonymous with love of freedom. When the author of the Declaration of Independence wrote that all are endowed by their Creator with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, those ideas and words echo the words and ideas from the books he studied in his library, from great enlightenment philosophers and theologians such as Bolingbroke, and Kames, and Locke.

Krauss added that it was said of Thomas Jefferson that, “Books were at all times his chosen companions,” and noted that when Jefferson founded the University of Virginia, he selected the titles of the 7000 books that became one of the first ever university libraries. And, Krauss said, “Jefferson’s book collection was the start of the Library of Congress.”

Hundreds of Bozemanites were there on opening day, straining to hear the mayor’s words, and then coursing through the library once the ribbon had been cut. I’ve been back at least four times since opening day and the air of celebration – the expressions on the faces of the staff members as well as the patrons – continues unabated. A week after the opening I ran into a friend and her first-grade daughter coming out as I went in. “We’ve been in there for two hours!” Suzi said. “It’s amazing!” The spacious parking lot, half-filled on a Sunday afternoon, indicated that a large slice of Bozeman had been drawn to the east end of Main Street that November afternoon.

“How could anybody hate a library?” friends have asked when I tell them about the nasty response to my column.

Taxes are the ostensible reason given by the letter writer and, I gather, many of the folks spreading false stories about the library on talk radio. But we voted, folks, we passed a bond issue. That’s the way it works in this country. If you can persuade a majority of voters that something is important, you get money to build it.

Not that the bond issue covered the project. At $4 million, it was less than a quarter of the total cost. The rest has come from private donations, some federal money (yes, some of the notorious earmarked bacon has come to roost on East Main, and I defy you to find another pork project anywhere in this country that will be used by as many proud and happy citizens), some tax increment funding from the urban renewal project in downtown Bozeman, the sale of the old library to the city for use as offices, and a bridge loan from the city to get the library completed now while an additional million or so is still being raised. The increase in property taxes is a tiny portion of the total cost and the library’s mill levy a tiny part of our property taxes.

But this is Bozeman, after all, and so there has to be some second guessing and suspicion and just plain mean-spirited carping. Some people didn’t like the site selected. Some people argued it shouldn’t be built on the east side of town when most of Bozeman’s growth has occurred to the west. A handful of preservationists were indignant that the library replaced a derelict Milwaukee Railroad depot that hadn’t been used in 60 years. Others resented the amount spent to remediate the pollution the railroad had left behind.

Other folks were surely confused by the fact that the city had to buy the old library, thinking the library was double-dipping somehow, not understanding that the Public Library Board owns its own property separately from the city.

And this being Gallatin County where the city may be politically blue but most of the county is red, where there are more environmental organizations headquartered than probably any other part of Montana, but where “greenie” and “tree-hugger” are still filthy insults in some circles – the new library’s status as the first certified “green” public building in Montana may have made almost as many enemies as friends.

Twenty-five years ago when the previous library opened, I was living in Japan when my folks sent me a newspaper clipping in which their representative in the state house of representatives had railed against the costs of building a new library. “I have never set foot inside a library,” he said and my father had scrawled on the clipping, “That explains a lot.”

Yes, there are people who hate libraries, and who despise people who love libraries. This is important information for all of us, because remember, the kind of people who hate libraries get to vote just like you and me.

Mayor Jeff Krauss believes the opening of a beautiful new library is particularly meaningful in this age of clashing cultures on the world scene. In his remarks he said, “The man who wrote the Declaration of Independence intended that document to forever proclaim ‘our free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion.’ In today’s world, just as it was in Jefferson’s, it is in our libraries where the light of science and reason triumphs over the dark violence of ignorance and superstition.”

The new Bozeman Public Library is a wonderful building but it’s more than that – it is already, in its second week of operation, a throbbing heart for a community that sometimes seems to be spinning away from itself.

On opening day, Mayor Krauss observed, “It’s been reported that Bozeman has the highest per capita education attainment level of all its peer cities in the Rocky Mountain region. It’s no surprise, then, that today we open an exceptional library as our signature public building, and feature it prominently on our Main Street, and proclaim our dedication to learning and knowledge right here at the gateway of our city.”

Everyone is welcome in the library. Even the haters of libraries. I hope they won’t be afraid to step inside. After all, subversive things are going on inside those beautiful new energy efficient walls and windows: People are reading, thinking and learning.

Every so often, it is so good to live in Bozeman, Montana!

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