President Elect Barack Obama has indicated his understanding of the important role libraries play in times of economic depression to assist people with job searches, job training and jobless benefits by including support to public libraries in his proposed massive economic stimulus package. Here's the speech he made in 2005 to the annual national conference of the American Library Association.
Bound to the Word
Guardians of truth and knowledge, librarians must be thanked for their role as champions of privacy, literacy, independent thinking, and most of all reading.
by Barack Obama
"If you open up Scripture, the Gospel according to John, it starts: "In the beginning was the Word." Although this has a very particular meaning in Scripture, more broadly what it speaks to is the critical importance of language, of writing, of reading, of communication, of books as a means of transmitting culture and binding us together as a people.
More than a building that houses books and data, the library represents a window to a larger world, the place where we've always come to discover big ideas and profound concepts that help move the American story forward and the human story forward...
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