MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The Memphis Library Foundation held a fundraiser Sunday, May 5, to bolster its nearly $1 million budget.
“The City of Memphis pays to keep the buildings open," Rachael Mattson, the Memphis Library Foundation's director of Development, told AB24. "They pay for the salaries of all the staff and everybody that works in the buildings, and they pay for all the collections and stuff. But our libraries are the most innovative in the country and to make those innovations happen we need more money.”
The money raised is separate from what taxpayers give to the public system. Memphis Public Libraries (MPL) now has 19 branches — the most recent opening in Orange Mound — and is the only public library system in the country to own a television and radio station.
Although private dollars are needed, public funds are matching the moment. The latest public information shows the city’s funding went from about $15 million in 2007 to almost $23 million in the last couple of years.
“I spent a lot of time at the library as a kid, and I was able to discover a lot of books that I wouldn’t have discovered otherwise if I had to buy them," Memphian Ben Minden-Bikenmair told ABC24. “It’s a way to access different narratives than your own, to understand different people from yourself, to live all these lives, through all these different stories than your own. I think it increases tour empathy for people that have different backgrounds than you.”