It was a defeat for bookworms everywhere; Christian County voters said no to a property tax hike to build three new libraries where they live.

  That's disappointing news for library officials who had been anticipating the vote for the better part of a decade.

  "This is the plan for the central library," Mabel Phillips explains as she rolls out a set of blueprints.

 Sometimes the best laid plans just don't come to fruition.

 "We can't do anything until we have the funding."

  That's what the Christian County library needed to get the plan from paper to production.

 But voters said "no" to a property tax hike designed to accomplish that.

 "This area between us right here is the space in which we are serving 30 Christian County residents," Phillips explains as she gestures to a few feet of carpet.

 An extreme lack of space and resources has been working against the Christian County library for more than half a century and sending its potential customers to greener pastures on the other side of the county line.

  "We've always had a lot of families from Nixa using the library facilities," says Jessie Alexander-East, manager of Greene County's Library Central Children's Department.

 Well over 2,000 Christian County residents had library cards with the Greene County library system in 2005.

 In Greene County people pay the rate Christian County was asking its voters for.

 Here's an interesting fact: Christian County spends a little less than $8 per person on its library system.

 Greene County on the other hand spends a little more than $41; that's almost equal to your yearly property tax.

 So you get back almost everything you put in if you use the Greene County libraries.

 That's why Lindsay Hill pays the out-of-county fee and drives from Nixa to the library center weekly; she says she gets her money's worth.

 "I get books from universities in Missouri, all over- and it's very easy to go online and reserve books," Hill tells us.

 With ten branches, plus a book mobile and a separate online library, the Hill's options for reading materials, activities- even meals- are endless.

 "You can get coffee, lunch, breakfast, lunch, and dinner here," says Alexander-East.

 Christian County library officials say they weren't even trying to add anything edible- just more brain food.

 "I think everyone was very surprised," Phillips says.

 Library officials say they will probably give the tax another go, but nothing has been set in stone yet.

 The average tax in the state for libraries is 25 cents per $100,000 of assessed property.

  That's what Greene County's is and what Christian County wanted.