Time to downsize, not expand library

I attended a public meeting over the July 17-18 weekend discussing the proposed expansion of the St. Charles Public Library.

Although I'm sure that the people involved have the best interests of St. Charles at heart, I was not convinced that this expansion is a good idea. All of the information available in the library is undergoing dramatic change.

Books are being digitized and read on wireless readers, DVDs are being phased out as Netflix sends downloads to your DVR or movies are available On Demand. CDs are obsolete as music is being downloaded from iTunes and other media sources. By the time the expansion is built, all of these technologies will be even more advanced and ubiquitous than they are today and will be available in even more amazing formats.

In this time of economic hardship, unemployment and increasing taxation, we should not be increasing the tax burden on our residents for an institution that should be rethinking its mission and living within its means. We must start to get smarter with our use of tax money and increase it only when there is a "must have" not a "nice to have" especially in cases where technology should enable us to reduce our facilities rather than increase them. Vote no for the library referendum.

Paul Ingevaldson

St. Charles