Johnny Damon, scruffy-tough outfielder for the Boston Red Sox, commented recently on the value of public libraries:

Damon lost the beard, temporarily, early in the season when he shaved it off in a public ceremony for $15,000 from Gillette razor company. He donated the money to the Boston public library system. Damon said libraries were important to him as a boy when he had trouble with homework and his parents worked so much that they did not have time to help him.

"Public school systems and library systems kind of get the shaft on a lot of things," Damon said. "The library system is a way for youth to get help."

(from "Meet the Mane Attraction of the Boston Red Sox", a New York Times article by Joe Lapointe (25 Sep 2004); see also BookHouses (14 Dec 1999), Boston Public Library (20 Jun 2002), ProudSignage (23 Apr 2003), Knowledge and Public Happiness (29 Jul 2003), GotLibrary (17 Sep 2003), ...)

TopicLibraries - TopicSociety - 2004-09-29

(correlates: ExtraCurricular, PublicGlimpses, GotLibrary, ...)