Again, how would you separate out the costs of websites that offer games from the Internet as a whole? And if you’re talking about kids playing games taking away computers from those that have to do serious research… well, that just doesn’t happen often enough to worry about.
You would be wrong.
Your figure of $29 a year has already been shown to be a joke. When the vast majority of tax payers aren’t making use of the library system, and in my case, has no easy access to that system, it’s disingenuous to try to amortize the cost over them. Let’s try a fairer approach: divide the total yearly funding for libraries by the number of distinct users.
Actually, the above is probably only worth one cent, since it didn’t really address most of the contentious issues in this thread (should these services be publicly subsidized? Would the free market provide them more efficiently were they not? Etc.). Ah well…
How about a tax on lazy and/or busy people? I must have donated hundreds of dollars to various libraries in late fees over my lifetime. University had especially large fine, which I managed to finagle my way into working off. I was so happy to find out that my new public library charges a mere pittance for books overdue even years.
< cough > Starbucks. Einstein Brothers Bagels. McFuckingDonalds all offer ‘free’* internet services and some offer magazines and newspapers free.*
*no-charge, at least.
http://www.ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/news/pressreleases2008/September2008/ORSharris.cfm
68% of the country has a library card, so please adjust the figure to $48 per person. Still far cheaper than any service in the free market that would attempt to do the same thing.
Now then, this survey also reveals that the vast, VAST majority of the population thinks very highly of the library:
EDITED TO ADD:
Don’t forget to add the $500 charge for a laptop. Your tax dollars could fuel library Internet offerings for ten years at that price.
Newsflash, Ridley: Not everything you find on the Internet is true. When it comes to information sources, as with most other things in life, you get what you pay for. I’m sort of confused as to why you keep talking about the free market and can’t figure this out.
Lexis/Nexis, Academic Search Premier, JSTOR and the other expensive databases beat free Internet hands down. They provide citations and full-text access to articles from newspapers and academic journals that you can’t get for free. They’re not cheap, either. It’s not like your average middle class family and their 2.5 kids are going to be able to subscribe to any of these DB’s, let alone all of them. They have to be provided by an institution. You know, like a public library.
I for one have no problem with subsidizing this kind of access for everyone through my taxes. More to the point, I have no problem with you subsidizing this kind of access for everyone through your taxes.
I’m not arguing that certain libraries have problems, nor am I arguing that kids playing video games is the absolute best thing to spend my tax dollars on. There’s no such thing as perfect. But a well-run public library helps everyone whether they use it or not, because the lower income people who use it get smarter, and smart people benefit the community. Or maybe they don’t. Maybe they get all smart and go out and get scholarships to business schools and go on to make a bunch of money through predatory lending, but you know what? Fuck it, public libraries are still awesome.
I didn’t say that. HOWEVER, vice-versa: there are somethings you can find in libraries that you cannot find online. AND, some people go to the library to-gasp-USE THE INTERNET!!! Oh, and to use the internet, you also need to own, I don’t know, a computer? And not everyone can afford one.
Besides, I love wandering through the stacks, finding old, dusty books that were printed before the Second World War-old magazines likewise, etc.
(Crap-I just remembered I better renew MY books by the end of this week!)
The OP asked if libraries served a purpose? I think he’s been answered. For many of us, they obviously DO. Like I said, if you tried to close down the Carnegie Library here in Pittsburgh, you’d have a massive protest on your hands. We have an absolutely AWESOME one. Come visit here sometime and check it out!
I’m just making a statement, which you seem to be dancing around but never directly challenging. Do you have a dispute with my statement, or are you just trying to justify how the system works?
In my county, out of towners have full access to all of our library’s services, and always have had. It may be different other places.
Now you contradicted yourself, and no one said it wasn’t equitable. I stand by my original statement.
Do you also think that the list of a self-publishing company is as good as the list of a real publisher?
My library also has computers available at no charge and also free access to services like Ancestry.com and HeritageQuest. I haven’t been able to find the same information for free anywhere else on the Internet. FamilySearch.org and Rootsweb are great, absolutely, but Ancestry’s apparently where the best information is at.
A lot of newspapers and magazines are also only available on microfilm - there is still a lot of information that simply can’t be obtained on the Internet. All the search engines in the world won’t help you find what’s not online - and I’ll take a librarian’s assistance over a search engine’s any day of the week.
Except guess what? You have to own a laptop computer to use the internet in these places. Wait…that costs money, and there are still lots of people who don’t have computers in their homes (I’m including laptops in that phrase).
Oh yes, because that will provide access to everything. Nope. There is still a lot of information behind pay walls. Also, how do you know the information you find is good information - I can find you something that will prove or disprove just about anything. It’s just a matter of finding the source you want.
A key thing that libraries try to teach people is the idea of information literacy - not all information is good information (in terms of truth, accuracy, currency, etc), but not everyone knows this.
Home internet access is not something that’s required. It is a luxury, especially if you’re struggling to make rent, transportation, food and utility bills. Sorry, if I have to choose between eating and internet, I’ll buy the food. Oh yeah, and in order to use that internet that I pay for I have to have a computer - that’s not realistic for many people. Your biases are showing - not everyone can buy a computer or afford internet access at home. And not everyone wants one in the house.
In order to buy it from Amazon, you have to have some means of paying for it. And you have to find it using a computer - oh, but I make minimum wage and after paying my rent, buying food and paying the water and electric, there’s no money left over for a computer or internet access. Guess I won’t be buying from Amazon then. Sucks to be me.
And because I don’t make a lot of money, I shouldn’t be able to watch movies? Because if I can’t afford to rent one from Blockbuster I sure can’t afford to go see a movie in the theater.
But to do this, I have to:
But wait! I can’t afford a computer or internet access, much less the course. Amazing though, that I can go to my local library (I’m sorry yours sucks: visit a good one sometime when you travel, seriously), where I can take a class to help me learn to use a computer, and find out that I’m not the only person who doesn’t know how to do these things.
Discernment of such things is a vital skill, no doubt, but how do libraries teach it?
Huh? Every McDonalds and Starbucks I know of where I am charge for Internet whether you buy anything or not. I would’ve thought something like that would be a corporate standard across the board, especially when you think of expenses for printing different notices and such…
You just made my day with that statistic.
When I go to the library, I see tons of mothers checking out a dozen picture books each for their kids. I suspect they do this week after week. How much would that cost on Amazon? And what is the benefit to society of all these kids growing up with a love for books and the written word? I bet it is a lot more than $29 a person. In our district, the school libraries are awful (budget cuts) so students go to the public library. Think of the economies in not having all those resources in each school library. That saves the taxpayers a bundle Here in Silicon Valley the libraries also have good business reference sections, perfect for people thinking about doing a startup or finding a job. Helping a person get employed faster saves a lot on unemployment and lost taxes. Sure there could be private resources, but that would be an additional cost just when a person can least afford it.
If I remember my history correctly, lending libraries predate free public libraries. Clearly the public libraries have out-competed the pay ones. I’m guessing the real problem is that the libertarians have a huge problem with admitting that the public sector does some things better and more efficiently than the private sector.
Those books you want… how long does it take you to get them over the Internet?
I can only speak specifically to academic libraries on short notice (though if it wasn’t dinner time I could find similar things for public libraries), but for one example, take a look at a module the Vanderbilt libraries built - What the C.R.A.P.?
On top of that, within each class that I teach to the students I work with, I build in elements of theInformation Literacy Standardsas expressed by the Association of College and Research Libraries. How I specifically build it in varies from class to class - since I work primarily with business students, I do a lot of focusing on finding and evaluating business information. Both on the web and in the databases. One aspect of Info Lit that I run into a LOT is that we have a large number of pay databases where I work, and I have students who come in to see me and say “I searched, but I found so much - how do I do this better?” and more efficiently. That too, is one of the marks of being information literate - knowing when you need help finding the information. I’d bet one of my public librarian colleagues can quickly point to efforts they make to help kids and teens evaluate information effectively.
when you include the used books available on Amazon, they are indeed very, very cheap. I frequently get books on there for under a dollar.
That said, not every book is like that. Libraries undoubtedly serve a purpose for that reason alone.
I do notice when I order through abebooks.com that shipping within the US is often cheaper than in Canada (as is everything…) but you still have to add at least $3-4 to each book. I rarely order used popular novels for that reason - it’s usually at least $8-9 just to ship within Canada, so I might as well pay the same $10 and get the book immediately from Chapters or Amazon. And that’s only if I really want to own the book; I use the library, both public and university, for the 90% of other books I read.
This is one of the strangest debates I’ve seen here in a while. Where on earth did this vehement anti-library group spring from?
Ayn Rand’s fevered loins.