Zack Stentz - As important as roads or police or firefighters

My favorite memories of libraries are going there... going there after school for the two hours before my mom was available to pick me up, and going through the stacks, back in the days of the Dewey Decimal System and card catalogs. Just going going to a section of the stacks that looked interesting, finding a book that I liked it, and then looking at all of the books next and above and below that book, and thinking that I was going for one book and end up checking out nine or ten. Libraries fostered my love of reading by having some so many things, so many topics that I was interested in available, and not just in a shallow away, like the Internet has, but in an in depth way. I could...if I was interested in sharks, I could almost become an expert by the time time I was done. If I was interested in geology there were books at any level of expertise that I could care for or want. I use the library for two things: One, to check out books that I'm interested in, but don't...aren't necessarily ready to make the full purchase commitment to. And I also use library a lot for research, especially when I need to do something that's more in depth than the Internet has. Our local libraries in Encino and Woodland Hills have really cut back their hours alot, made it a lot and that's made it a lot more difficult to access them, and I think of libraries as a public service, as important as roads or police or firefighters, so I hope that they are prioritized accordingly. I am all for parents taking, as a parent, I'm all for parents having information and parents making decisions on what they... what's appropriate or not appropriate for their kids to read. But I'm not for preemptively making things unavailable. Our latest novel, which is also our debut novel is called "Colin Fischer," and it's about the adventures of a fourteen year old boy with Aspergergers Syndrome and the school bully and how they become the "Holmes" and Watson" of their high school.