Certain Carrboro landmarks are so woven into the fabric of this community that it would be difficult to imagine our town without them: The Farmer's Market, for example, where I stroll in a circle early on Saturday mornings, stopping to visit with farmers I have come to know over the years. Or the lawn of Weaver Street Market, where a tall man in running clothes once approached my table and asked in a strange accent if he could join me. (Ten years later, we sometimes find ourselves at the same table on a summer evening, watching our son teeter around the edge of the fountain at one end of the lawn and our daughter execute impressive hooping maneuvers on the other.)

There is another place that embodies Carrboro's community spirit, its open-mindedness, and its cultural offerings to such a degree that it pains me to imagine our town without it: the Carrboro Branch Library. So I was alarmed to recently discover that due to budget constraints, the library may soon close.

Six years ago, I was thrilled to discover that Carrboro had its own library at McDougle Middle School. Once a week, I had been driving my toddler to the Chapel Hill Public Library to stock up on bedtime story books. I quickly discovered that the modest library offered something totally unique: friendly and knowledgeable librarians who remembered your name, an excellent book and DVD collection, and some of the best children's programs around. And as an added bonus: I could get there on my bike, and it was never, ever crowded.

Every weekend, almost without exception, my children and I pack up our basket of books and head to the library, where we disperse in three different directions. My 8-year-old daughter can often be found on her knees, sorting through the low shelf of the crafts aisle, or doing research on the computer. My 4-year-old son rushes over to the board books, rifles through them, and then carries his selection over to a soft pillow by the window where he settles in to read. And I make a beeline for the DVD section, to scan for some of the best new releases, foreign films, or documentaries to be found anywhere. If we don't make it to the library, it feels like something is missing from our weekend.

The Carrboro librarians are extraordinary. They can captivate a room full of squirmy toddlers during story hour, or help those same toddlers magically turn paper scraps into a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow during craft time. They greet patrons by name and help them find books based on a vague description or a garbled title. They will search the library top to bottom for a book - and if they can't find it, they will locate it through their inter-library loan system and leave a friendly message on your machine to let you know it is ready for pickup. I have requested an obscure poetry collection by a California poet; a book of esoteric teachings by a deceased Tibetan Buddhist; a slender book on writing written more than half a century ago. To my surprise and delight, the librarians tracked all of these books down.

Ten years ago, when I was a single girl who pored over "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" and saved my pennies for shoestring travel outside the United States, I could not have imagined that a highlight of my week would be biking to my local library with my two children, or that I would have such admiration and gratitude for small-town librarians. At that time in my life, I thought adventures only happened in exotic places and all revolutionary acts were dramatic and violent.

But I have come to understand that raising my children well is an exciting adventure and that my local library is a quietly revolutionary place. In the Carrboro Branch Library, I'm reminded that my life is about more than making and spending money. It's a place where I can share with my children some of my most cherished values: for lifelong learning, personal responsibility, and community trust. In today's world, where corporations have even colonized our schools and vibrant communal spaces are harder and harder to find, our small local library is an outpost of freedom: a public resource built on the old-fashioned values of trust for one's neighbor, free inquiry and sharing of resources.

How many places can you go where you are not expected to spend a single penny, and yet everything you see is available for you to take home and enjoy? How many places do you know that offer access to the best knowledge in the world -- and top-notch service to boot -- for free? In tough economic times, this resource is more important than ever -- for those of us who need access to a computer for a job search, for those who can't afford to buy every book that catches their eye at Barnes & Noble, for those who seek inspiration through the written word. On behalf of the patrons of the Carrboro Branch Library: please don't pawn off one of Carrboro's most precious treasures for some short-term financial relief.