For libraries, the impact of the derailed economy was felt more fully in 2009 than in 2008, as tax revenues decreased and public funds dwindled. By February 2009, the American Library Association (ALA) reported from a survey of its Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA) that 41 percent of states expected declining state funding for public libraries. Despite the grim economic circumstances in 2009, voters delivered an overwhelming vote of confidence to their local libraries. In fact, 84 percent of all operating referenda passed nationwide. And while building referenda presented a tougher battle, nearly 54 percent passed, including a $17 million bond for the Snake River School District and Community Library in Blackfoot, Idaho, which topped the charts in size of winning appeals last year. Libraries nationwide won, despite the reality that voters were losing their homes to foreclosures at an alarming rate. This article presents some of the reasons they voted to support their local libraries.