Beloved library shuts down permanently

By Rebecca Aguilar

“We are huge readers, and we were here every single week growing up.” Kate Bell reminisced with her two sisters about all the years they spent at the Skillman Southwestern Library in Dallas. Now 21 years old, she remembered one special day at the library: “On my 12th birthday, I got my own library card, because we kept maxing out our family card with all the books we were taking out.” 

Bell and her sisters joined more than 200 people on Saturday afternoon, the last day the library was to remain open. Many walked the aisles of bookshelves, some sat at tables with a favorite book, and others were there to thank the librarians who had become like family. 

Residents in the area had been fighting to keep the library for a while, but earlier this month, city leaders made the final decision to cut the library’s budget. “We are sending a message that we want to tax you as little as possible and still deliver the essential core service,” said Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson at a September 17 council meeting. He pushed for an amendment to remove the Skillman Southwestern Library’s operating budget of $386,000 and use the funds to help lower the city’s tax rate. 

He added, “This is about the fact that it was recommended to us based on data, a data-driven city, making data-driven policy decisions, that this library is not operating any standard … efficiency.” 

Kelly Yee’s children are now adults, but the Skillman Southwestern Library was a place where she could gather with neighbors and sometimes get lost in a book. “Tell me a story, tell me a memoir, something someone has really lived. And that’s what this place has done for me. I’ve been able to look on the shelves, pick out something, and go to a different world and sit down with a different person through their book,” Yee (pictured) said. 

Nineteen-year-old Lydia Bell called city leaders in an effort to save the library and persuade them that libraries provide a safe space for teenagers. “I have a ton of friends who love libraries and love reading. We love spending time together here.”

Yee said city leaders don’t look at the issue beyond dollar signs and called the Skillman branch library the heart and soul of the community. “If you want to talk about prevention of youth trouble and senior isolation, and even a welcoming place for neighbors, a library has it all. It gives you community.” 

“It’s one of the few things that is truly free and accessible for everyone, for so many things today are not free and are not for the community,” Bell, who will now have to find another library, said. 

The closing of the Skillman library doesn’t mean that other libraries in Dallas do not face the same fate. Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert informed the council in early September that Dallas is behind other major cities in its library service standards, which may necessitate a shift to a regional model.