“I really think old Asimov hit the mark,” says my friend and mentor, Dan D. Cook. He sent me the following quotation, and it’s worth repeating.

(Cook is past president of Friends of the Phoenix Public Library, and a powerful advocate for a healthy library system throughout our city, county, state, and nation.)

“I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library. For an impoverished child whose family could not afford to buy books, the library was the open door to wonder and achievement, and I can never be sufficiently grateful that I had the wit to charge through that door and make the most of it. Now, when I read constantly about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that the door is closing and that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.” – Isaac Asimov