Op-Ed Columns

OXFORD — The couple, Alayne Livingston recalls, were in their 70s. They'd been Oxford residents for nearly two decades. The husband was retired; the wife was taking chemotherapy treatments.

"They were just precious people," Livingston says.

As luck would have it, the paths of the director of the Oxford Public Library and these "precious people" crossed one afternoon in May. They'd read in the paper that the library — the new one — had scheduled its open house. It sounded like a good time. So that Saturday, they drove up the hill that overlooks City Hall for a tour of this town's newest civic addition.

That's when Livingston heard the real story.

"They did not know we had a library," she said. "They'd been going to Anniston."

Granted, that's an extreme example. Of course Oxford has a library; it's had one as long as anyone can remember, and beyond.

But Livingston retells her chance meeting with this retired couple along with a smile and a segue into her bigger point: The library's opening is destined to do nothing but bring Oxford good vibes and positive feedback from those who read its volumes and those who are glad it's open.

Finally.

It's an unofficial coronation, but Oxford's library may hold the title as the most controversial, argued-over facility in Calhoun County. What a dishonor that was.

In various stages of planning, development and construction for five years, the library long ago became an experimental Petri dish for the quirky, often-contentious relationship between Mayor Leon Smith and the Oxford City Council.

Gather the council.

Add the mayor.

Mention the library.

Watch the fireworks.

Repeatedly, persistently, Smith railed against the library: its cost (approximately $5 million), its size (25,000 square feet) and its necessity (the old building, a former church on Choccolocco Street, leaked rainwater like a sieve). Members of the council disagreed with the mayor.

The library was built.

But the discord — some of it public, in council chambers —between mayor and council over nearly every facet of the library slowed its opening to the pace of a 50-year-old jogger. It's an indignity that Oxford's new library became a political toy tossed back-and-forth between those elected to take care of the city's business.

That it's an election year makes it even more distasteful. The whole episode hasn't been one of the attractive moments in Oxford political history.

For now, assigning blame over the Great Library Fight is not only infantile, it's useless. The library's open. Its worth is undeniable. And regardless of which side you choose — the mayor's or the council's — Oxford is better today because the city spent a not-so-small portion of its bank account on an opulent, striking library.

I dropped in this week to see what all the fuss had been about. I resisted the urge to slip off my shoes at the front door.

It's impressive. (For $5 million, it'd better be.) Its main entrance doesn't have a maitre de offering wine and cheese, but it should. Its bottom floor houses the fun rooms: the main reading areas, a summer reading program table, the youth center and the children's areas. As I walked through, some children giggled while they tapped on Internet stations; others tried to convince their moms about their book selections. Above the children's tables hung brightly colored bumblebees and similar creatures.

Its second floor is for heavy-lifters, professional readers, serious students; it's also the home of the Oxford Room, the treasure trove of city artifacts and documents. And all through the building, bottom floor and top, are framed paintings that hearken to different periods of the city's past: the old Oxford College building, the heyday of Oxford Lake Park, the Old Mill.

Libraries, especially vibrant ones, can be ventricles in the heart of a city. They are fountains of information, magnets that pull together citizens of all ages and races. And for Oxford, a small, Southern town with an admirable record of financial prudence, its new library is a representation of how a burgeoning city can bleed a little from its bank account and improve the quality of life for its residents.

Oxford has the cash. It should spend it on those who live there.

Other cities in Calhoun County can only wish they had that luxury.

And our couple?

As Livingston continues with her story, she recalls that the woman's doctor had advised rest after her chemo treatments. Watching movies often did the trick. So that day, the staff issued her an Oxford library card, which she used to check out a few movies from the media-center collection.

"To me," Livingston said, her glee showing, "it's the little things like that that keep people coming back."

That's $5 million well spent.