Libraries Give Us Wealth of Knowledge, Services at Minimal Cost : Tax money for these public institutions is well spent. Books give many people a window to other worlds, not to mention countless hours of reading pleasure.

A funny thing happened recently when I read about a proposed tax increase. For once, I’m all for it, because I believe this may be the only way to save one of our county’s most valuable resources--public libraries.

I often wonder, where would I be today without them? I got hooked on books way back in the fourth grade. In our school, what separated the big kids from the little ones was that fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-graders got to use the school library. To me it was like entering the proverbial magic kingdom as I got my first look at the big room, its walls lined with eight-foot shelves each crammed full of books I was actually allowed to take home and read.

I wasted no time. That first day I checked out a biography of Louisa May Alcott. In subsequent weeks I discovered Albert Payson Terhune’s wonderful books about dogs, then went on to “Beautiful Joe,” “Smokey,” “Black Beauty,” and my all-time childhood favorite, “Silver Chief, Dog of the North.” (Years later I bought my own copy and read it to our own kids.)

The first day of vacation, unable to face a summer without books, I trudged the 1 1/2 miles uptown, climbed the stairs to the top floor of the three-story brick building that housed our town library, and got my first library card. Another banquet of books to explore and digest.

Twice a week all summer I’d exchange one armload of books for another. I read most of “Little Women” perched high up in our back yard peach tree, and when Mom wasn’t looking I’d dust with one hand and hold a book in the other. At night I’d sneak a flashlight upstairs so I could read under the covers; and by the time summer was over, I vowed that someday I’d not only read books, I’d write them as well.

I still love libraries. One of the most rewarding jobs I ever tackled was serving as PTA library chairman at our neighborhood elementary school, especially at the end of the year when I helped select more than 100 books for their collection.

I’ve been in big libraries full of marble statues, and in little libraries in the back room of a small town drugstore. I’ve even been privileged to do research in the prestigious Huntington Library in San Marino, where down in the stacks I, along with the other scholars, could exchange the present for the past. But it really doesn’t matter what library I’m in. Every one of them reminds me that, because we have libraries, the past is still there to help us understand the future.

I marvel that today’s libraries not only offer books, magazines, and newspapers but videotapes, talking books, cultural programs, story hours for preschoolers, information on community events, how to find a job, consumer advice, even tax forms. All that, along with friendly knowledgeable resource people to help find anything anyone might conceivably want to know.

Does any other public service offer as much for so little from the people who use the service? I doubt it. Every time I hear of another library forced to cut hours, unable to buy new books, even closing its doors, I wonder how many kids will make TV their only window on the world if they can no longer check out books for free? And how many people like me, unable to finish college for lack of money, will find it harder to keep up with the world they live in? Thanks to free public libraries, we can all further our knowledge in any direction, the only cost is our own time and motivation.

Ben Franklin knew what he was doing back in 1731 when he set up what was to become the forerunner of free public libraries. The best thing about libraries is that they truly provide equal opportunity for everyone, the same materials available to one and all. Does any other service offer a better bargain for the taxpayer’s dollar? Not to my way of thinking.