Jokes

With its rows of books and gleaming windows, the municipal library in Sierra Vista seems much like any other, except for the military uniforms inside.
Soldiers from Fort Huachuca are spending more time here as part of a Defense Department experiment aimed at improving services and saving money.
In a setup being hailed as a potential model for other military installations, the Army post, about 75 miles southeast of Tucson, recently signed a deal with the city of Sierra Vista to have the city provide library services for soldiers. The fort also is considering paying the city to provide animal-control services on post once new facilities are built. Another recent contract has the city maintaining the Army's traffic lights.
"This is brand-new. Nobody has done this before in the Army," Col. Jonathan Hunter, the fort's garrison commander, said of the library contract. "My personal opinion is that these types of partnerships are the wave of the future."
The change was the source of some controversy, because it involved closing the fort's existing library, which shut its doors on March 30.
The American Library Association protested the shutdown, arguing that the Army should have paid to improve the site and keep it open.
"Closing this library, especially during a time of war, will deprive soldiers and their families of an important resource for education, information, technology, as well as morale-building," said a letter the association sent late last month to Army headquarters at the Pentagon.
An on-post library has existed for more than a century and was more convenient for military families, the letter said.
Hunter said he hadn't heard many complaints from soldiers about the closure.
The Library Association said that may be because the Army did not ask for soldiers' opinions before making the change. Army officials said many military families already used the city's facility.
Leaving the old library open would have cost more than the Army can afford, officials said.
The idea of asking municipalities to provide certain services to military installations — such as library access, recreation services, animal control, trash pickup and grounds maintenance — was raised in 2005 in that fiscal year's defense appropriations act. It authorized the Army to create a test program at Fort Huachuca.
Initially, Sierra Vista officials looked at running the fort's library as a satellite branch, Hunter said.
But when the city studied the concept, the results "were shocking," he said.
The study found that, from years of underfunding, Fort Huachuca's library was far below Army standards. It was too small and was short-staffed, and it lacked computers. Its music collection was mostly on vinyl records, and most of the books were more than 20 years old.
Fixing those problems would have cost about $665,000 a year, nearly double what the Army was spending, Hunter said.
Under the new deal, the Army pays about $65,000 a year for soldier access to the state-of-the-art municipal library, which is about six miles from Army housing.
Staffers at the closed library will be transferred to other jobs on the post. About 5,000 of its books will go to fort's military intelligence library. The rest may go to other libraries on Army posts and elsewhere.
David Gunckel, chief librarian at the Sierra Vista library, said it's always sad to lose a library, especially one with a long history, such as the facility at Fort Huachuca.
But the city library is rolling out the red carpet for the troops, who already are coming in more often, he said.
"No librarian likes to see a library close," he said. "But as far as providing for these soldiers, I think we're going to be OK."

● Contact reporter Carol Ann Alaimo at 573-4138 or at calaimo@azstarnet.com.