The libraries in my hometown are going to be a victim of the Iraq war. They are still scheduled to close in April due to a lack of funds. The funds were tied to timber sales, which dried up for a variety of environmental and economic reasons in the 1990s, and have been subsidized since then by the U.S. Congress:

In the early 1900s, Roosevelt took 2.4 million acres away from the Oregon-California Railroad, which was accused of swindling land deals in exchange for building the railroad. When the federal government reclaimed the land, Oregon lost half its property tax base.

To make up for it, the federal government agreed to split timber revenues on the acreage with Oregon. Over the next 50 years it was a lucrative arrangement, and timber money was used to build courthouses and jails, pave roads and free Oregonians from having to pay sales taxes.

The good times petered out in the early 1990s, when the northern spotted owl was listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, all but shutting down large-scale logging. Today, just one large sawmill remains in Jackson County, compared with 91 in 1954.

While promising to come up with rules for a more ecologically friendly logging method, Congress agreed in 2000 to continue “safety net” payments to rural counties for six more years. But no one did the hard work of figuring out how to balance the timber industry with nature. So the checks stopped in December 2006.

The problem is worse than just libraries. Jackson county has also had to cut back on beds in the county jail, on monitoring of sex offenders, parks and recreation services, on fixing potholes — on everything. But the loss of the libraries is the worst. Libraries are the heart of small communities, where all kinds of meetings, celebrations and events are held. In many of the towns effected by the Jackson county shutdown, there are just a few public buildings in the town, one or two churches, and maybe a diner. The library’s public spaces are tremendously important in that kind of environment. These communities are being gutted.