Manchester City Library

WHEREAS, the Manchester Library, its West Side branch, and the many school libraries in the city play a vital role in providing thousands of residents with the resources they need to live, learn and work in the 21st century; and

WHEREAS, Manchester’s libraries are changing, meeting the needs of its residents of all walks of life; and

WHEREAS, Manchester’s libraries bring its residents a world of knowledge both in person and online, as well as personal service and assistance in an age where day-to-day life is becoming more impersonal; and

WHEREAS, Manchester’s libraries are an educational extension to those looking for an affordable means of self-improvement, a complementary resource for formal education, or for those seeking information not readily available anywhere else; and

WHEREAS, Manchester libraries continue to fill another need, to be a gathering place for diverse populations to enrich their lives through educational enrichment; and

WHEREAS, ever since the first free publicly-funded library opened in Peterborough in 1833, the library has been an important municipal resource nationwide and particularly in New Hampshire.

NOW, THEREFORE, I Frank C. Guinta, Mayor of the City of Manchester, N.H., do hereby proclaim April 13-19, 2008, as Library Week. I urge city residents to consider the role Manchester libraries have played in their lives and encourage those who have not been to one recently to see the changes afoot.

Given on this fifteenth of April, in the year of Our Lord two thousand and eight and the independence of the United States of America, two hundred and thirty-one.

[Signed] Frank C. Guinta