To Great Bend City Council members and the public:
A matter of significant concern was recently noted in the Tribune, that being that our city council is considering cutting the monetary allotment to the Great Bend Library. This, I believe, would be a huge mistake and great disservice to citizens in Great Bend and surrounding communities who also utilize our library. In addition to the obvious provision of books to borrow, our library offers many other services to people such as interlibrary loan access to any book in any library in the country, computers people can use for free (printers, also), area newspapers people can read, movies to check out and movies shown for free for children, teens, and adults (including free popcorn), and a specially designated room for young people to gather and socialize. The library provides many free programs for kids throughout the year and special events such as at Halloween and Christmas. The library has a 3D printer the public can use and staff does tutoring on use of computers and cell phones, a great help to the electronically challenged. The library has a meeting room in the basement that groups can use and librarians do outreach in the schools. The library also periodically has displays of art done by local citizens, another cultural enrichment. Obviously, the Great Bend Library goes above and beyond to serve people and cutting funding would likely result in significant cuts in the extra services our communities receive and would also mean possible loss of other grants and allotments totaling $91,050. This would be a huge loss and no doubt result in significant reductions in the many ways our library serves our citizens.
Please do not inflict the huge loss, which would impact so many people in a detrimental way.

Sylvia Deslauiers
Great Bend