I’m not talking about university libraries… I’m talking about community public libraries.
Why are we spending tax dollars to support them? What purpose do they serve?
Books are cheap and plentiful; just about anything in print can be procured via amazon.com.
The last time I went to a public library was last year. I was with my kids, and we were killing time. The only activities I witnessed were 1) People renting movies, and 2) people surfing the Internet.
I say… get rid of community public libraries. They don’t serve much of a purpose anymore. For the few functions that *might *be considered valuable (e.g. maintaining historical documents), let a private institution take over those tasks.
I read a lot of stuff, and I definitely don’t want to purchase everything I read–I’d have way too much stuff. And it seems like they’re way too expensive. Sometimes you can get good stuff used, but not always, especially if it’s newer.
Anyway, I still get books from the library, and I’m pretty sure lots of people do. It would be an awful thing to get rid of them.
Not everyone can afford to purchase all the books they want, but with an inter-library loan system you can get nearly all of them for free. Some of us like to look at a book before we purchase it, perhaps even read it first.
And trying the new movie or latest CD? I’m not buying unless I know we will like it, and our local video store has been closed for 6 months and we have no idea when/if they will reopen.
There is a great need for libraries, and I would definitely be against eliminating them in Ohio (or anywhere).
No they’re not. Books are plentiful precisely because there are libraries. And the only place I’ve seen cheap books are at a library book sale. And while Amazon is wonderful, what about people who don’t have Internet access? One of the few places they can get online for free is at the library.
And what’s wrong with movies? They’re just a form of media, just like books. Inherently no better and no worse. Only the most ancient and out-of-touch patron/librarian thinks movies don’t belong in libraries.
Finally, library usage goes way up in times of financial crisis precisely because people are looking for a cheap outlaw for entertainment and information. Not to mention the dozen or so people I will help Monday and every day after with their resumes.
Plenty of people use the library. You’d be surprised how many people don’t have reliable internet access or access to books. Books are still expensive. Most people can’t afford books on a regular basis.
Absolutely - This MSNBC video hit the library blogs recently - I was lazy about looking for one on the msnbc site - but I have seen this mentioned on other library blogs about the increase in usage.
Libraries serve a purpose beyond books. Your location says you’re in Ohio. That means you have access to the Ohio Web Library. This gives you 24 hour access to librarians who can help you or your children with questions. It also gives citizens access to (from within the library and outside) a number of proprietary databases that have articles and information that are not available on the free web. Not the least of these is Learning Express Library - which offers free practice tests for everything from the PSAT to the ASVAB to the GMAT to Firefighter and Police exams.
Beyond books: that internet access is important. A lot of U.S. government information is no longer available in print - the library I work at, while a depository library, receives the majority of it’s government documents as electronic, internet accessible items, not physical items. In order to have an informed populace, this information needs to be available. And has been said, there are still a lot of people in this country who do not have internet access at home - there is a huge digital divide.
Coming from someone who uses Latin so freely on these boards, that’s surprising. Care to explain why, this is Great Debates after all.
Oh, and re the digital divide. I liken it to this board’s dedication to Tivo. Whenever someone mentions missing a show in a Cafe Society thread or saying that their VCR is on the fritz, dozens of people will come out of the woodwork, shocked that this poor soul doesn’t have a Tivo. But only 20% of TV owners have a DVR of some kind. While the numbers for broadband Internet are a little better (60% of all Internet users last time I checked), to say that the Internet is as ubiqutious as it is is only because of library access.
Books may be plentiful, but I would not call them cheap. I recently began taking advantage of our community library system and I have been amazed at what is available. All free. I have access to research, the internet/computer use if my computer dies (library saved my butt during NanoWriMo). After wasting countless dollars on crappy books, I went through a two year period where I pretty much just re-read the books I already had. Now that books are free, I go through a new book or two per week. LOVE the library, hope it is never eliminated.
Simple. I believe the government should be kept as small as possible (as it is inherently inefficient), and libraries are an unnecessary expansion of government influence. I have similar views about public schools, although I am open to the possibility of government-issued vouchers, since children are a special case under the law (but I really don’t want to turn this into an education debate).
Also, libraries are most definitely not free. The free market can do the exact same thing, but much more efficiently.
Free markets don’t exist in an uneducated society. What you’ll end up with in a society that gives people only the education they can afford is a small hereditary aristocracy that educates its own children and a majority of serfs that can’t and don’t.
No, it can’t and won’t. There’s no profit in offering books and Internet access and such free of charge. There’s any number of things that the government does better than private industry; often things private industry would have no desire to do at all.
Private libraries created by the free market most certainly exist, but they are by no means more complete or useful than public libraries (which are roughly funded by a few dollars from each person’s tax bill). A private library also frequently requires a heavy fee that the most needy library users would not be able to pay.
Also, you overstate the “government influence” of libraries. In New York state, public libraries MUST be kept separate from governmental departments (it’s in the public library charter issued by the Board of Education). Librarians are essentially on their own after the government hands over the budget check.
ETA: Netflix and Gamefly could be considered private libraries in the sense that they offer unlimited “free” movies and video games after the monthly fee. Subscribing to just those two services would require $400 a year. A huge outlay compared to a person’s taxed contribution to a public library.
As a child and teenager, I spent a lot of time at the library. When I went to community college, I used it as a quiet place to study and work on reports. Recently, I’ve rediscovered the pleasure of a library, and have been plowing through books at a pace that would put a severe hurting on my disposable income if I had to BUY them.
Many ppl don’t make use of the library, it’s true. In the neighborhood of my childhood, there were never more than two ppl working there at a time - usually just one - and the total number of ppl in the library never exceeded what I could count on my fingers. I’m happy to say that, in my current town, my local branch is hopping with activity every time I’m there.
I haven’t always made use of the library, but I’m damn glad I had it when I wanted or needed it. We didn’t have much money when I was growing up, and it made a difference to me.
In the UK, libraries are mildly proactive in promoting a general improvement in standards of literacy - there are people, especially the urban poor, for whom the price of books* is the deciding factor between having and not having them. Books are a luxury item taking second place to potatoes.
And I think a very reasonable case can be made that an improvement in literacy is just the sort of thing that governments should be legitimately concerned with - because it has effects that ripple out into employment, community cohesion, crime prevention, etc.
Whilst I’m certain it would be technically possible for private enterprise to support some kind of library service, I don’t believe it would ever turn out to be as good as state-run libraries, because of the quite considerable variety of externalities, which government entities should encompass and care about, but private enterprise would consider none of their concern.
(In fact, I have made the same argument in the past about the BBC, not that it’s necessarily doing a brilliant job at the moment)
*(even if they were really cheap on Amazon, etc, which I don’t actually agree they are. You can’t get cheaper than ‘free’)
If you consider $20-$30 for most hardback books for somebody who reads several books per month cheap, “te salud Don Corleone”. Even if I were a lot wealthier I’d rather borrow the books from a library when I didn’t feel I’d want to keep them and use the cash for something else (dining out if you feel like it or IRA if you’re more responsible than I am).
Anyone who doesn’t support public libraries has never been truly poor. For a time living in London my wife and I had a budget of breakfast cereal, one pint of milk, half a loaf of bread, one shared packet of cigarettes and two cans of soup a day. We couldn’t even afford to use the tube.
All that kept us sane and happy were the two local libraries, free to air radio and free to air TV.
Services provided by the government and paid for by taxes are not “free”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in favour of public libraries, but don’t pretend they’re something they’re not.