This was the case for me as well. Not only was the library a place where you learn how big the world really is, but it can be a refuge from a dysfunctional family. It’s quiet. People don’t argue. And the employees don’t have to fake it that they enjoy your patronage. Just ask a reference librarian about some obscure information you need. He or she will go to the furthest lengths to get it out of her or his own enjoyment.
Not to mention, when I was in college, for my thesis, we were recquired to use first-hand sources-which I could only obtain in my local library archives (and museums, which here in Pittsburgh, are connected with the library-the Carnegie)
This is true – it’s a kind of perversion we suffer from. 
What a sad fucking thread.
“I don’t like to read. Why should I subsidize people who do?”
We’ll end this thread on a high note.
I just checked and I’m working my way up on the reservation list for the DVD of Season 1 of Mad Men - I’m #15 in a list of 48 
- Season 2 will be long over by the time my turn comes.
That’s a big problem, reserving movies and such, if they’re new or popular, the library only has a few copies for the whole county.
I would enjoy my local library if it wasn’t full of sleeping homeless people.
Think of them as additional seating at no cost to the taxpayer.
Why would you want the job of maintaining historical documents in the hands of a private institution?
It seems that several of the more hostile exchanges in this thread included posters who are no longer here, so I am going to shut this down to avoid having new fights started over old fights.
The topic is still open for discussion; it simply requires a separate thread.
[ /Modding ]
My local library divides up the computers into two sections–one for kids, and one for adults.
This.
I was trying to come up with a more eloquent and wordy argument, complete with logic, and random Latin stuff, but it all comes back to this.
Fail. 
Plentiful? Sure. Cheap? Not fucking hardly.
I recently read Drood, by Dan Simmons. It lists for $26.99 retail; that’s the price of a couple of meals for my family, the price of a 24"X48" pre-stretched canvas for my studio, the price of a pair of pants and a shirt for my little boy, or a full tank of gas for my car (or, if the fact that were poor as church mice gets too overwhelming, the price of a bottle of Jamesons).
Fortunately, I checked it out from my local library and it cost me nothing out of pocket; a miniscule portion of my taxes —probably not much more than that aforementioned $26.99— covers funding for the library system, and the $26.99 I would have spent on this single, gigantic, long-wided but very well written book gets to stay warm and cozy in my wallet to be used for something else and another interested member of the community gets to read Drood.
Interesting.
Well, I’ll try it again.