No, they should be privatized and turned over to for-profit corporations like everything else in America. Free? You’re a socialist aren’t you. People like you aren’t Real Americans. 
The Fort Worth public library charges a fee for people who don’t live in Fort Worth for a library card. My location still says that I live in Fort Worth, but I’ve moved to one of the tiny cities between FW and Dallas, and when we sell our old house in FW, then I’ll no longer be eligible to check things out of the FW library, because I’ll no longer be paying FW taxes, unless I get a non resident card, which will allow me to check out materials. I can either pay a fee, or I can volunteer at the FW library for something 14 hours or so. I agree with this fee, because if I’m not living in FW, I don’t see why I should be able to get FW benefits without paying one way or the other for them. And I do want to be able to check things out from the FW library, as it has many, many more materials than the tiny library which my new town can afford.
I don’t want to see fees for computer usage, or for story time. I do want to see reasonable limits on computer usage (that is, if people are waiting and somebody just wants to play games on the computer, then there should be a time limit). And I also want to see disruptive kids being kept under control. And disruptive adults, for that matter.
I think that providing online access to unemployed and underemployed people is one of those investments that will really pay off in the long run. The library branch where I used to live offered ESL and GED tutoring, which are other investments. And I think it would be incredibly short-sighted to cut funding for those services, or to charge for them.
To my mind, libraries have at least two primary goals: education and recreation. While I use libraries primarily for recreation, I think that their primary purpose should be education.
If you wanted to ask the smartest people in the world about this topic, why in the world did you post here? Are you planning to do that later and compare their answers with the ones you get here? Anyway…
The availability of a free public library has benefits that redound to the public at large, including people who never use the library at all. Therefore, a “user fee” would shift the burden of paying for the library away from where it belongs, i.e., the community at large. It’s the same rationale as when even childless people are charged property taxes that pay for public schools.
I’ve seen libraries charge a fee for books placed on hold and not picked up within a week. I’ve also seen printing/photocopy fees. I think those are reasonable. But charging for use of the library and resources should never happen - free access to those resources the point of a library.
My library back home in Montreal gave patrons an option to skip the waiting list for new and popular items by paying a few bucks to "rent’ them. While I don’t love that idea, I’m sure it brings in a lot of money for the library and helps them keep everything going.
Now, I suppose you could argue that there’s a market for private libraries, maybe a “Netflix for books” sort of thing, but I don’t think that could, or should, replace free public libraries.
Well, charging late fees is already government social engineering though taxes.
Unless someone amongst the volunteers or donors has actually said this, I doubt it. There are plenty of cultural institutions that charge and still get both volunteers and donors, because the charges cover only a part – often a small part – of the full cost. Operas, symphonies, etc. charge for tickets, but every room and nearly every seat has a donor’s name on it. Many (but not all) non-profit museums and zoos also charge to enter but still have volunteers – with a particular title, docent.
(Still agree with what everyone else has said about free libraries. :D)
Wait, you don’t think people should be able to renew their books online? I do it all the time! I’m not going to lug all my books back to the library just to renew them. I also order books online as well. (Pretty much the entire catalog is online)
And I can check the status of when they’ll be in, how long it’s taking, etc. And I get e-mail reminders too. It’s just good customer service.
Yeah, I’ve forgotten to renew mine on time and had late fees. Happens to the best of us! (Although never $53! The most I had was $10, because of the amount of books I had at the time)
And I’ve always seen limits on how long you can use the computers – two hours at mine.
I grew up in an isloated rural area with a family in which I was the first person to graduate from college and, except for my younger brother, STILL the only one to do so in a math/science.
My dad had a 6th grade education, my mom an 8th grade. My older siblings…well, one graduated high school. First cousins similar.
WTH happened with me? My sister has said multiple times that she doesn’t know where I came from. However, I can remember the public library as some of my early memories.
The local public library wasn’t much. Looking back, it was laughable. They didn’t have many new books and the ones they had were 20+ years old. It was in a rickety old building basement that smelled musty.
But it was COOL! I remember walking in one day because it was on the walk to school. Hell, I didn’t even know what a public library WAS (I was about 7). All I knew is they let you take books home. There was books on bugs and dinosaurs and space and history and all sorts of things.
Many times I would go in after school and stay there for an hour and be the only one there. I found out when I was older that the librarian wasn’t even a librarian but a volunteer.
I can’t say it was the library that steered me more academic in my life…but it certainly didn’t hurt. I think it had a big impact.
If that library would have cost money? My parents wouldn’t have paid. At 7 I sure couldn’t.
Was the library used much? No. Many times I was the only one there. However, I DID use it and now as an old geezer looking back I’m sure glad it was there.
Really?
Why should we make libraries harder and more frustrating to use? I don’t think overdue fines should be a goal of the library at all. The purpose of an overdue fine should be to get people to bring the book back in. Hoping that people forget to return their books and have to pay fines is just going to sour people on the library in general and possibly stop using it entirely because it’s not worth it to them to pay the fine.
My library charges a fee to place a book on hold. Seems ok to me, since it’s a value added feature and it’s generally not a big deal if you can’t afford it. You can just read another book. I can read any of thousands of books for free, but if I want to read the most popular books, and have them to take one off the shelf and keep it just for me before I get there, I can pay a bit for that.
I do worry about libraries, though. Lots of people I know don’t use them, and they are having to deal with increasing numbers of homeless people because other social services are cut. I’ve already heard people refer to the library as “a place where homeless people hang out”, and while I think homeless people have a right to use the library, once people stop feeling that it’s an inviting place, it’s going to be cut just like all the other social services that homeless people avail themselves of. If the choice is libraries with fees or no libraries at all, I’ll take the fees.
When the Great Recession hit some local conservative politician in the county proposed cutting the library hours and staff to save money.
I was truly shocked - pleasantly so, but still shocked - at the response. My county isn’t well known for high intelligence, is very conservative, religious, full of Tea Party types but there was a genuine UPROAR at the notion of cutting back on the library. After a brief kerfluffle they actually wound up expanding library hours in my county, at all the branches.
They are now renovating the various branches. I don’t know where they got the funding from, but both the regular patrons and the tradesmen the project is employing are quite happy about it.
As my county no longer has any brick-and-mortar bookstores left in it, your choice for new books is either the library or Amazon, more or less. In addition to treebooks they have e-books (although not a great selection yet - they just started that about 18 months ago); audio books; a huge collection of DVD’s of movies, TV shows, documentaries, educational stuff; magazines; newspapers; music downloads; and computer access. Just about everything is on line, and you can see which branch has an available copy. You can request books on line and renew on line. They have long promoted inter-library loan for books/materials they don’t have but other libraries do. Their meeting rooms provide space for social clubs, tutoring, workshops, and other activities.
And all of those services are free to the public (well, we pay taxes, but you get the idea).
Sure, they get some homeless people. The social contract is that if the homeless guys aren’t causing a disturbance they’re left alone and allowed to use the restrooms. During bad weather yes, you typically get some homeless hanging out in the periodical room and occasionally napping. A lot of scruffy folks use the computers for job searching, and on Wednesdays the computers are reserved for ONLY job searching.
I’ve long used both libraries and bookstores, and currently use both Netflix and the library DVD collection. They seem to complement each other nicely. I absolutely am in favor of continuing free access public libraries.
Librarian here.
I can’t believe this hasn’t been mentioned yet, but a huge number of libraries already charge fees for these services and more. And very few members of the public have a problem because they understand that without those fees, library services would have to be cut.
I don’t go to the library much anymore, but when I was a kid I was there a lot. I think there is definitely a good service offered by free public libraries and hope they remain free.
Plus it is quite easy to not allow renewals if someone else has requested the book. But if it would be just sitting on the shelf, why not allow renewals. And doing it on-line saves energy, especially for those of us whose eyes are bigger than their reading time.
There shouldn’t be any fees to access information, including the internet. Otherwise, what’s the difference between a library and a bookstore with an internet cafe?
Rent out rooms, charge for copies, etc. – but keep that information (and access to it) free.
You’re right on the Internet. I’ve never heard of a public library charging for Internet access.
I’m jealous of you all with decent libraries, really.
The county I used to use the libraries in where I lived was easily one of the wealthier in the nation, and was booming even in 2008. However while their book selection was decent DVDs and CDs were a joke, an awful lot of total trash DVDs like exercise vids and sports bloopers(the only decent DVD I ever found at the main three story branch was Hitchcock’s Psycho. CDs were just as bad, classical music and broaway showtunes with Celene Dion being the sum of popular music from the past three decades.
Now where I live the library requires entering through airport style security to enter, and it is always akward as either they just wave me through or are befuddled why steel toe boots set off a metal detector. Inside there are more security guards than librarians and the selection is horrible. About the only thing it is good for is local reference resources. It is a nice facility but apparently incidents with bored high schoolstudents starting brawls has made it unusable.
I agree we need a well-educated population and free libraries support that goal. Even ignorant people who never use the library themselves benefit from the well-educated people who keep society running for the ignorant people to use.
The debate in real life is somewhat different than an abstract debate about whether we should have public libraries. Presumably everyone here agrees that libraries are good, and that free access to all their services are also good. I’m a lifelong literary nerd who’s spent a considerable portion of my life in public libraries and I certainly love having them and love the fact that they’re free. No debate there.
The real debate begins when we consider finances in the real world. All across the country (and other countries as well) cities are either going bankrupt or taking desperate measures to avoid bankruptcy. The cause of the problem is clear. Local governments are running out of money. Cutbacks are being forced by basic math. Public libraries can be cut back without threatening lives, while police and fire cannot. Libraries can also be cut back without provoking a flurry of lawsuits, while spending in many areas cannot be. Hence libraries are often among the first victims when a city runs out of money.
Spending cuts are not the only way to reduce deficits but, as you say, we’re faced with the “real world” … or rather the post-rational U.S. version thereof.
But reckless spending cuts are not the answer. Save a government from bankruptcy, and the post-rational response will be to call for yet more tax cuts.
If this tea party crap keeps up, we’ll be a third-world country before too long.