Mark Knezevic wrote:

>I find that I am now interested to a much greater degree, than ever I
>was before, in 20th Century music ...In one way, I can owe this to the
>university library from which I borrow cds with said composers, and this
>way, I can experiment with other styles without it hurting my wallet.
>But once I got a taste for it, well, now I'm buying

One of my favourite newspaper headlines, from when was in New York City
for the great 1980 Picasso Exhibition, has to do with public libraries
and budget cuts.  Very simply, the Village Voice's headline read:  "Mayor
Koch's fight against literacy"

I'm all for well-funded libraries; my life would be a lot poorer without
them.  Yet I suspect that some publishers and bookstores see libraries as
potential enemies, cutting into their profits.  Your experience and mine
illustrate that this isn't so.

To take one case alone:  It's been my good fortune that my public library
has for some years had a decent collection of Einojuhani Rautavaara's
music.

Mine's now far better.  I'm most grateful to them (for spending my tax
money wisely).

I could go on about how I used to make it a practice to get lost in
libraries to find new subjects to read about, and how I borrowed a book
about Antoni Gaudi's architecture and ended up going to Barcelona, where
I met the mother of my 3 little ones ...but won't.

Best,

Bert Bailey, in Ottawa