libraries not accessible to some
A meeting tonight will
examine the expansion
of local library services
By Laura Cadiz
Oregon Daily Emerald
About 90,000 Lane County
residents have not had free ac
cess to a public library since
1988. For the first time in more
than a decade, the county is
now taking steps to tackle that
problem.
A public meeting today at 5:30
p.m. at the Irvington Grange,
1011 Irvington Dr., will be a fo
rum to discuss how to improve
library access throughout the
county. The public can voice
their concerns and hear the re
sults of a project that analyzed
the problem.
The project, funded by a
$20,000 grant from the Oregon
State Library, was designed to
identify and examine options for
people who do not have access to
one of the county’s seven public
libraries.
The library system allows
people to use a city’s library
only if they live within the
city’s boundaries. That means
that people who live in Eugene
cannot use the Springfield Pub
lic Library without paying a
$55 annual fee.
That leaves people who live in
cities with no libraries, such as
Coburg, Pleasant Hill and Marco
la, with the only option of paying
an annual fee — which varies at
each library but can be as high as
$75 — to use another city’s li
brary.
“Everyone should have access
to resources that libraries provide
to the community,” said Karen
Gaffney, assistant director for
project services at the county’s
health and human services de
partment. She also oversees the
library assessment project for the
county.
Project consultant Dallas
Young Shaffer will present infor
mation at the meeting about li
brary capacity, unserved county
residents and the way other com
munities have dealt with ex
panding library services.
Gaffney said the options con
sidered to improve access in
clude: creating a countywide li
brary system in which everyone
who lives in the county can have
access to all of its public libraries;
forming a library district for
those outside library boundaries;
or expanding library districts to
include more people.
The project was the first step to
identify such options, Gaffney
said. The next step is to get input
from community members who
don’t have library access and dis
cover how to meet their needs.
The study has not identified spe
cific costs for each option be
cause the county does not plan to
put such detailed research into
each option until the public ex
presses its specific needs, she
said.
The last time the county had a
library system was in 1988, when
voters did not pass levies to con
tinue funding the library. Since
then, a Fern Ridge library district
has opened to help service more
people. But that still leaves
90,000 of more than 313,000
county residents without public
library access.
Gaffney said there had been
some discussion about providing
access to more people, but no
concrete steps were taken until
the Oregon State Library in 1998
made it a goal to provide more
access to people.
Bill Sullivan, Eugene Public
Library Foundation president,
said the library system doesn’t al
low library access for people who
need the services the most — stu
dents and young families. He
said the real tragedy is seeing
parents who are unable to check
out books for their young chil
dren because they can’t afford to
pay an annual fee.
“I can just see [the parent’s]
face fall,” he said. “And what do
the kids do? They watch TV.
They don’t have books.”
Sullivan pointed out that
Lane County is one of the few
Oregon counties that does not
have a countywide library sys
tem. For example, Douglas
County and Multnomah County
both have library systems
where county residents can use
any of the county’s libraries for
free. In fact, 70 percent of the
people in the state who don’t
have access to a public library
live in Lane County.
Sullivan said he is confident in
Shaffer’s ability to help discover
practical options to solve the
problem because she helped
merge 15 eastern Oregon coun
ties into one library system.
“If she can do that, we hope
she can get seven Lane County
libraries to work together,” he
said.
Hope for liberal arts grads
A variety of jobs await
those with liberal arts
degrees, advisers say
By Tricia Schwennesen
for the Emerald
Parents need not worry.
Students can do just about
anything with a degree from this
University, traditionally
deemed a liberal arts institution.
The job opportunities may
not be as obvious as a newspa
per reporter with a degree in
journalism or a bank executive
with a degree in business, but a
liberal arts degree can lead to a
variety of careers.
“I picked U of O because it had
a reputation for being more of a
liberal arts college,” said Travis
Boeh, a senior English major.
“My philosophy is you have to
study something that’ll keep your
attention, and I don’t think every
one wants to be engineers even if
that’s where the money is.”
Boeh said he plans to be a
high school English teacher, but
the skills he’s learned could be
applied to other professions,
such as technical writing.
“It’s easier to teach the tech
nology to someone who already
knows how to write vs. teaching
| someone to write who knows
the technology,” Boeh said.
Teaching isn’t the only career
for a student with an English de
gree; it could lead to a career in
medicine, law or even business,
said Richard Stevenson, an as
sociate professor of English.
“I see an English major as an
ideal major for critical thinking
and communicating — any
thing that involves using the
mind in an organized way,”
Stevenson said.
For many students, a bache
lors degree of any kind is the
prize at the end of their college
career. They may never return
for a master’s degree or a Ph.D.
A student with a degree in psy
chology could work for a group
home, the mentally disabled or
an organization that works with
children and families.
“There are
quite a few op
tions, though
none of them pay
well,” said
Pamela Birrell,
undergraduate
adviser in psy
chology. “You’re
kind of starting at the bottom of
the ladder.”
Some students combine a ma
jor in a liberal arts discipline with
a major in a foreign language.
“They do just about any
thing,” said Luis Verano, un
dergraduate adviser in ro
mance languages. “Essentially,
they are doing whatever they
would be doing in English but
in another language.”
Being able to communicate
in another language opens
more doors, Verano said.
“It just adds a whole other di
mension to what they can do,”
Verano said. “With the lan
guage, the whole world is open
to you.”
Acquiring another language
could lead to diplomatic jobs
with the United Nations or at an
embassy abroad, he said. Lan
guage can also enhance a career
in international studies, busi
ness, anthropology or sociology.
WOMEN IN SPORTS
A Competitive Advantage
4th annual women in sports business symposium
THURSDAY, MAY 13
KEYNOTE SPEAKER AND RECEPTION
Eli Primrose-Smith
VP Worldwide Olympic and Sports Sponsorship, IBM
7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. • Gerlinger Lounge, University of Oregon
“THE FU
MARKETING TD A NEW
10:30 am -12:00 p.m. • |
FRIDAY, MAY 14
PANEL DISCUSSIONS
Representatives from:
IBM, Limitless Events <$t Marketing, NFL, NHL, NIKE,
Portland Trail Blazers, The Coca-Cola Company, Women’s Sports Foundation
'', If. :
“THE CHALLENGES OF SPORTS SPONSORSHIP:
CUTTING THROUGH THE CLUTTER”
8:45 a.m. - 10:15 a.m. ■ EMU Ballroom, University of Oregon
JRE OF SPORTS:
ENERATION OF SPORTS FANS”
EMU Ballroom, University of Oregon