I woke up this morning at 5am for no particular reason. Apparently this is a sign of old age or something. I blearily and misguidedly checked my email and news feed quickly - something I have repeatedly told myself is inadvisable before noon.
I read the CBC headline that the Alberta Government was announcing another $9 million dollars in funding for Alberta's public libraries. My brain translated the headline to "Alberta Liberals". I thought it was strange, and in the stupor I was in I spent the next couple of hours thinking weird thoughts like where did the Alberta Liberals get $9 million dollars. Will this level the playing field? Is that a lot of money? Where are my pants? etc etc.
I woke up later and realized how very confused I was. Libraries. Not Liberals. Not that I wouldn't want the Alberta Liberals to get $9 million dollars. If the Alberta Liberals had $9 million dollars they could buy the next election and deport Stelmach.
In spite of our affluent societies our libraries need more than $9 million dollars. For example, all the libraries in Calgary have had a public wireless network for a few years, but few of them have places to plug notebook computers in. Retrofitting to online collections is now also a big trend with libraries and expensive. And then there are all those literacy and reading programs, and ESL tutoring - all done by volunteers.
I'm glad they got the money, especially during a time when the Alberta Government has absolutely no idea how to manage money and resources.
This additional funding takes some of the burden off me to continually pay those hundreds of dollars in late fees. I hope they spend the money wisely and not on silly christian novels about the rapture or Miss Marple DVD's.
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