Who wants books permanently based in the 40/210/crossroads area? The county libraries budget $35 a book. Cleveland Library is proposing an initial commitment to the project of over 5,000 ($175,000) and up to 10,000 ($350,000) books to get a branch started, with additional books as space and usage grows. The figures are given in case you would rather incorporate and use your tax dollars for book purchases. Johnston County is served by an affiliation of town libraries, which are not going to put a branch library in the unincorporated county area that does not pay town taxes. Likewise various people interested in a local library have been told that the Johnston libraries have no responsibility to increase their book collection to provide a minimum of 2 books per resident within their 15 minute drive time circle and they will not give one book, one hour, or one dollar to put books in the "non-tax paying county." That formal answer is as harsh a reality as the volunteer firemen we watched on television letting a house burn down, because the folks didn't pay their annual fire tax. Informally, the staff can be very helpful within their limited operating guidelines. Clayton Friends of the Library and their Library gave many thousands of books to Cleveland. Volunteers from the Cleveland Library have been giving free "new" books to residents in the 40/42 and 40/210 area during the past few weeks. The volunteers usually give away $3,000 worth a day, when they can get on the road and have dry weather. Some books were given to each of Johnston's town libraries. The books are part of the first 53' long truck load that arrived directly from the publisher to Cleveland Library to be given free to the people in the area. The library was notified that the initial donation is to be doubled and local residents are now promised books worth $1.4 million, with half non-fiction and half fiction. This is a really big project for an all volunteer library and needs many more volunteers to simply give books to their neighbors. Once people got over the surprise that the books were free, they started talking about their former libraries. Many people expressed their frustration over the time and cost to drive out of their home area to find reading material. Parents were concerned about the limited time their children had to use the school libraries and the restricted number of books they were allowed to borrow. Many children told of getting transportation to several libraries and still not getting the books they needed or wanted. Cleveland's volunteers bring patron book requests in four days a week and they are still organizing the 180,000 books that arrived at a rate greater than 1,000 a week for the past three years. The Cleveland Library is at 5533 NC HWY 42 W STE D96, Garner, NC 27529; 919-661-6565. Rather than being tax funded, Cleveland has been funded by thrift shop sales and donations for over three years and is now converting to membership and donations as one of 17 subscription libraries in the United States. This form of funding was used to develop libraries until the laws were changed and cities began a common tax for everyone in towns to pay for community libraries. Durham was the first tax funded library in North Carolina.
