Last week, on vacation, I drove down to Salida to see a friend. In the park across from the library was a health care protest. In tone, it was much like the many wild emails I've gotten lately about the scary takeover of medical care by big government.

I don't claim to be an expert. But speaking as an administrator of a public agency, I can tell you this: it's scary right now.

According to an article in the Washington Post (January 25, 2009), "A growing number of workers in 2009 will pay more for health benefits -- and in some cases receive less coverage -- as their employers grapple with the financial fallout of rising medical expenses and diminished revenue and profits."

On April 22, the Douglas County Libraries invited our volunteers to a modest recognition dinner. The occasion: looking back on 2008 library volunteerism. It was a record-breaker.

To many citizens, public funding is a mystery. That includes library funding. So this week I thought I'd walk through some numbers for one of our service areas that's been in the news lately: Louviers.

A few weeks ago I gave a talk up in Golden. Later, a journalism student interviewed me. Was there still a place for the library, he wanted to know, in the age of the Internet?

I told him that I've been asked that by a lot of reporters over the years. But it has a particular poignancy to it now. Before this young man, the last person to ask me worked for the Rocky Mountain News. (The financially troubled Rocky, as surely everyone now knows, recently shut down operations after failure to find a buyer.)