A brief reflection on Denver’s saloon libraries of yore from the Rocky Mountain News:
It took 31 years after Denver’s 1858 birth for the town to open a free public library. Denver Public Library has made up for lost time since, becoming the nation’s No. 1 library from 1999 to 2001, according to the definitive Hennen’s American Public Library Rating index.
Then budget cuts reduced funding and staff, forcing the central library to close each Wednesday since July 1, 2003. Each of the 22 branches also closes one day a week.
At this rate Denverites will have to start going to saloons again for reading materials. In the town’s early days, saloons competed by offering goods and services, including reading rooms …
Saloons and libraries
I wonder if the saloons thought that libraries would soften their image and make them more acceptable to the entire population. Today libraries combine education with political agenda, do think that the libraries will make the political agendas more acceptable to the public?
We have come a long way, but strategy might still be the same.
Re:Saloons and libraries
Personally, I’d equate saloon reading-rooms with library-cafes. Just tie your cayuse to the hitching post and mosey on in for a double double decaf to go with your James Joyce.
Amazing. The more things change the more they stay the same.
libraries as saloons
By the number of 40s and plastic pint vodka bottles we find tucked in waste cans, I’d say there’s a movement afoot to join these two great institutions once more.
I know there are days when I could do with a good, stiff drink at work.