Burgess Owens: “I hope that this bill will help to concretize in our minds the value of libraries and museums to work together. I happen…”

“I hope that this bill will help to concretize in our minds the value of libraries and museums to work together. I happen to live across the street from one of the greatest museums in America, the Brooklyn Museum of Art. I also live one block away from one of the greatest public libraries, the Central Library of the Brooklyn Public Library, where I worked for 8 years as a librarian. I got a master's degree from the Atlanta University School of Library Science, and was a librarian for 8 years before I went into another line of work that led to politics. But in the history of Federal funding of libraries, everything we have done for libraries, of all the years there has been some kind of Federal assistance it would not equal the price of one aircraft carrier. I think that is unfortunate, because we do get a great deal of cost-benefits ratio, a good cost-benefit ratio from libraries. I am particularly interested in the library service as the technology section of this bill. That section recognizes that libraries are moving with the mainstream in terms of digitalized and computerized learning, and that it is probably in the forefront.”