Beltsville was supposed to get a new library in the 1970s, but budget cuts almost shuttered it altogether. The building shown here exists only because of community activism. Image by Prince George’s County Memorial Library System.
This is the fourth article in a series about the history of the Prince George’s County library system. Read parts 1, 2, 3, and 5.
The 1960s and 1970s saw major growth in the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System (PGCMLS), both in the number of branches and in moves to new, larger buildings that allowed more comprehensive library services. But at the end of the 1970s, that growth ground to a halt when residents passed a racially-motivated referendum limiting the county’s taxing authority. That restriction, a form of which exists to this day, brought about an era of austerity for the library system that lasted a generation.
For area libraries and patrons, pandemic has meant a whole new story
By Luciana Perez-Uribe and Michelle Siegel
Capital News Service
WASHINGTON When the COVID-19 pandemic emerged but before everything truly shut down Elyse Kovalsky’s first stop was the Mt. Pleasant Library on 16th Street in Northwest Washington.
“When everyone else was freaking out and going to buy toilet paper, I freaked out and went to the library,” said Kovalsky, 39, an employee at a nonprofit in the city.
“I got as many books as I could physically carry, and I remember walking home and they, at some point on 19th Street, all fell out of my hands,” she said. But at that moment, going to the library “felt like the most important thing.”