These volunteers are interested in providing a library that serves more people, not just certain people. The less controversial but less honest approach would have been to duck the issue in public session. Indeed, more officials and organizations seek to sanitize public discussions so as to avoid the appearance of controversy or disagreement on any issue. It's a sound principle to live by, but it breeds public mistrust of officials who never say what they mean for the record. The Library Board didn't succumb to that dubious strategy this week.
Libraries are community centers, but also learning centers.
They are neither day cares nor nursing homes, although children and the aged, and people with handicaps, should be welcomed and encouraged to use the many services a library offers. Supervisors seem to be shopping the county home residents in an effort to satisfy the county's building needs rather than the residents' needs. That strategy merits tougher reactions than the Library Board's open assessment of the problematic mix of uses proposed for the old hospital.