I am not a resident of Rockport, but I'm a frequent visitor (since my daughter and her family live there), both to the area and to the library. I am proud to be a financial supporter to the interlibrary loan program. Because of the importance of an accessible, adaptable library to the growing, productive community, I have carefully followed the debate over Questions 8 and 9. I support their approval.

At the beginning of the 20th century — around the time the Rockport Library was founded — Andrew Carnegie was the richest man in America. His commitment to the credo "A man who dies rich dies in disgrace" led him to spend $60 million to fund a system of nearly 1,700 public libraries across the country. None of Carnegie's beneficence was directly visited upon Rockport, but his commitment to free and public libraries as a tool for educating the common man and woman and for giving life to the American dream would clearly resonate with those who founded the Rockport Public Library and supported its growth throughout its history. Andrew Carnegie's experience taught him that libraries can be liberating; they can be — they should be — instruments of change. But to do that, they must be more than unchanging, inflexible shrines for the worship of books. To succeed, they must be accessible and adaptable. And when necessary, they must move.

Change worries some people. It paralyzes them and traps them in misinformation. It causes them to distort, to disparage the opposing side, to conjure up "facts" and "solutions" that are more dross than gold. I don't know what the "answer" to Rockport's library needs is, but I am absolutely certain that it doesn't lie in voting no on Questions 8 and 9. Passing the resolutions will move the process forward in an open, deliberative manner, not consign it to the shadows. A library for all should not be derailed by the fear of a few. Vote yes on 8 and 9.

Timothy McCormally lives in Arlington, Va.