
The last thing libraries need is Silicon Valley “disruption.” - naters
https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/7/26/17616516/amazon-silicon-valley-libraries-forbes
======
geebee
I'm largely in agreement with this Vox piece, but I think there's much more to
say in defense of libraries as well.

I have a friend who found a red envelope with some money in it in a book that
he'd checked out of the library. He figured it belonged to whoever had checked
the book out earlier, so he went into the branch and mentioned it. They said
that they could find out the last person to read the book, but no more than
that, because by and large, librarians (at least in that system) deliberately
avoided keeping long term records of what people are reading, to safeguard
privacy rights.

Can you imagine Netflix or Amazon, Google or Facebook behaving this way? Could
be that I'm from an older generation, but there was a time when people
considered the idea of an institution having a long and complete list of
everything you've read more than creepy, it was terrifying. Add in cell phone
tracking devices that show where we are, map apps that show where we go at
what time and what routes we take, commence sites that show what we buy and
consider buying. You know for a while there it was impossible to remove a film
from your recently watched list on Netflix? (the tech advice was to just
select a bunch of stuff randomly and bury it deep if you didn't want it
sitting there for everyone else to see the next day).

Libraries don't play nearly as much of a role in making sure that people can
access information privately as they used to, they've been shoved out of the
way, but they were far more principled guardians of it than tech companies (I
mean, night and day, they were guardians, tech companies are rapacious
violators of this principle).

~~~
romaniv
This is a very important point. Libraries do more than just lend books. They
are institutions that preserve and promote knowledge and have certain values
"built in". They also often serve as local community centers of sorts. Having
cheap books available in Kindle store does not fully replace functionality of
a library.

~~~
cdubzzz
> They also often serve as local community centers of sorts.

The public libraries in Seattle are an amazing thing. My wife goes to "kids
play time" with our ten month old son at a couple of different libraries every
week. And we can also bring him in to the kids play area any time and take the
kids area books on the honor system. It's a really great way to interact with
other kids until we start using day care or he gets to preschool age. And it
gives my wife a chance to meet other parents and get a break.

~~~
prolikewh0a
The Capitol Hill branch of Seattle Public Libraries was the first Library I
had been to in probably 20 years and I fell in love with the entire system. It
made me read much more than I was in the past and the free events and learning
they have are amazing. It is an enormous benefit to the citizens of the city,
as well as the low income/poor who can charge their cell phones or use the
internet so they can keep up with potential employers who may call them or
send them emails, as well as look for jobs or complete online applications (as
well as many more things).

They also provide a free subscription to Lynda with your library card.

~~~
cdubzzz
Cool! Didn't know about Lynda.

You can also get free tickets to a lot of local museums:
[https://www.spl.org/programs-and-services/arts-and-
culture/m...](https://www.spl.org/programs-and-services/arts-and-
culture/museum-pass)

~~~
prolikewh0a
If you haven't checked out the Living Computer Museum down in SoDo, it's an
absolute MUST. SPL provides free tickets to it :)

------
chris_mc
If you think libraries are useless, try going to one a few times and talk to
the staff about the services they provide. I'd personally say libraries are
one of the government organizations with the best return on investment,
because education and information are almost invaluable. I'll fight a war over
libraries, no joke.

~~~
rb808
> try going to one

This is probably the best hint that they might not be so useful. The truth is
most people never go to libraries.

~~~
romaniv
Some users of this website might never go to libraries, but every time I go to
our local library there are tons of people there.

~~~
prolikewh0a
Every Seattle Public Library branch I go to is packed full every single day
they're open, especially people using their computers.

------
JoeDaDude
Librarians sometime have to fight to defend their patrons privacy. Some might
remember that in the wake of 9/11 there were thoughts that libraries could tip
off law enforcement by tracking patrons reading preferences [1]. More recent
treatment of the issues - and laws - about the privacy, or lack thereof, of
library patrons is discussed in [2].

[1]. [https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/FBI-checking-out-
Ame...](https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/FBI-checking-out-Americans-
reading-habits-2826830.php)

[2]. [https://www.thenation.com/article/librarians-versus-
nsa/](https://www.thenation.com/article/librarians-versus-nsa/)

~~~
minikites
>in the wake of 9/11

Patron privacy has always been a bedrock of librarianship:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoia_Horn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoia_Horn)

>Horn was jailed for nearly three weeks for contempt of court after refusing
to testify for the prosecution in the 1972 conspiracy trial of the "Harrisburg
Seven" anti-war activists.

------
larkeith
Personally, I cannot fathom finding it preferable, or even acceptable, for
Amazon to attempt to displace my local library; Much like bookstores, there's
an essential soul to them any corporate invader like Amazon lacks utterly. I
have fond memories of summers spent trawling the stacks, afternoons at a table
with friends working on homework, DnD sessions in the private meeting rooms,
and browsing old stock auctions for the eclectic. Libraries and bookstores are
some of the few holdouts of the bibliophile, and remain the best place to get
recommendations or spend a quiet evening immersed in a novel - even if Amazon
could somehow fulfill each of the numerous services of a modern library, the
idea of losing such a wonderful refuge to corporate uniformity is abhorrent.

~~~
rayiner
Expenditure of public money on an endeavor should not be driven by romantic
notions like whether something has "essential soul." Tax money is a scarce
resource. Money that's spent on libraries is tax money that's not available to
offer better lunches to needy children. That's the calculus.

Our county library system gets $22 million a year in tax dollars to service
2.4 million visits. Could Amazon meet those needs more cheaply? If so, that is
a win.

~~~
Djvacto
According to politifact[1], education spending accounts for just 3% of all
government spending (mandatory and discretionary). Using libraries as the
target for cuts so that we can feed the school-children, and citing logic, is
ignoring a lot of other much more 'logical' choices we can make first.
Military spending (16%), or Health spending, which is a whopping 28% because
of our horse-by-committee system here in the US. We spend $10,348 per person
[2], while Canada spends $6,604 per person [3], and the next highest countries
reportedly spend $3,000 less per person than we do [4].

[1] - [https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2015/aug...](https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2015/aug/17/facebook-posts/pie-chart-federal-spending-
circulating-internet-mi/) [2] - [https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-
and-Systems/Sta...](https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-
Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-
Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/NationalHealthAccountsHistorical.html) [3] -
[https://www.cihi.ca/en/health-spending](https://www.cihi.ca/en/health-
spending) [4] - [https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/health-costs-how-the-
us-...](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/health-costs-how-the-us-compares-
with-other-countries)

~~~
prolikewh0a
Education is a wonderful return on tax investment that a lot of these people
claiming "we spend too much on it" don't take into account.

Just a quick example: How many of these libraries allow poor/low
income/homeless to learn new skills or use their free internet to find jobs
they wouldn't otherwise be able to find, in the end becoming tax paying
contributing members of society?

They are an invaluable community resource that absolutely returns what goes
into it.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Education is a wonderful return on tax investment_

Eh, I see both sides of the coin. Education is a great place to spend money.
But American governments are really good at throwing money at things that look
like education, but do very little in terms of measurable gains.

Case in point: my Cupertino public high school now has ten times the number of
assistant principals as it did when I attended, but maybe 10% more students.

------
TimJYoung
If you're going to have copyright and intellectual property, then you _need_
libraries, period. You can't charge money for such goods and completely cut
off access to those that can't afford them. You need a balance between
compensating the hard work of the creators and making sure that all citizens
have access to their own culture, especially children.

I also host a software development meetup at our local library, and I'm pretty
sure that this is commonplace in the software meetup/user group world.

Even Thomas Sowell, a man that isn't fond of government ventures, frequently
talks about how important libraries were to his intellectual development as a
child.

~~~
kazen44
> If you're going to have copyright and intellectual property, then you need
> libraries, period. You can't charge money for such goods and completely cut
> off access to those that can't afford them.

i strongly agree with this point. Freedom to educate onselfes without using
institutionalised education is also VITAL for a democracy to function
properly.

People seem to forget libraries are one of the only places one can gain new
knowledge regardless of their economic state or status. (atleast, that is how
it works in my country).

------
harlanji
The Library is literally the last place I can go as a homeless person to be
left alone... I've been Tweeting about just this recently.

The idea of Amazon taking over the library literally has tears in my eyes
right now, in the middle of a public room: absolutely not.

I grew up with no resources, uneducated parents, and the library was my refuge
and why I made it to a successful position the first time.

Take the Library away and I'm done for, and poor people never have a chance.

> We give them a running start in helping improve their lives.

Oh, you can check out books there, too.

~~~
lovehashbrowns
I was never homeless but I was in such a bad place, mentally, when I was a
teen and the library was my sanctuary. The 4th floor of the Harold Washington
Library in downtown Chicago. :') I have so many really fond memories of that
place. Finally getting peace and quiet away from home. Having a place where I
could read things and study. Or just hide away from everything and myself.

It makes me sad that there are people who want to get rid of these places. And
what's worse is that they'd use exactly these reasons to get rid of them--the
homeless and the recluses hang out there!

------
maym86
I'm sick of people going after things they don't use or understand that are
valuable to people of lesser means while spewing the efficiencies of the free
market.

Amazon only makes as much money as it does because it manages to avoid paying
tax while utilizing the infrastructure built and maintained by collecting
taxes.

~~~
ikeyany
This is a Prime example of why tech workers are despised outside of our
bubble.

~~~
dionidium
The bubble of tech workers is only equaled by the bubble of anti-tech
activists. _Most_ people don't have a stronger opinion about what you do than
you do about whatever random thing they do.

~~~
ikeyany
I'm sure bankers believe the same thing about themselves.

~~~
jdminhbg
Except there's survey data about this, and tech companies are the most
respected and banks are the least:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/wells-
fargo-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/wells-fargo-is-
least-respected-company-in-america--even-less-than-big-
tobacco/2017/06/05/b59fb7a4-49ee-11e7-a186-60c031eab644_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.70f1007f1985)

~~~
ikeyany
Respecting Alphabet, Apple, and Amazon as companies is _very_ different from
respecting tech workers as a whole.

~~~
dionidium
At least it’s _some sort_ of data and not just a bunch of people in a bubble
talking about how people perceive their bubble as though participating in the
bubble doesn’t _obviously_ influence how they view outside perception of the
bubble.

------
classichasclass
As a kid prior to this Internet thing, I used to spend hours in the microfiche
section reading interesting articles. If I had some money, I'd print a couple
to take home and let the toxic chemical smell follow me back when I read them
later.

Later on my little community library had cassette music to rent, so I enjoyed
Paul Simon, the Manhattan Transfer and Alan Parsons.

The magazine racks had all the back issues of computer magazines I could never
find.

I learned so much I would walk there on weekends and just spend an afternoon.
I went back there a couple years ago and the microfiche area was now a bank of
PCs and I didn't see the music section, but even though such things change,
I'm glad my community library is still around for this generation to use.
There's no means of discovery quite like browsing racks and finding some
interesting journal or book you never knew existed.

------
topkai22
The interesting thing on this thread is that while there is a general
agreement libraries are high ROI government institutions and worth preserving,
I don’t think anyone has defended the libraries role as a repository of books.

I personally I am glad that these neighborhood book warehouses exist, we
personally take our kids to checkout books about monthly. But as an adult?
Almost all my check outs are via inter library loan, and even then my county’s
selection of books as limited. Need a recent copy of a “home construction
costs” estimator? Good luck. Looking for an obscure 70s novel your dad told
you about? They threw it away in the 80s.

A “national library” inter library loan system would be AMAZING. I know my
college had something like that, but a single loan could cost $35-50. If a
Seattle company (because, come on, Amazon isn’t Silicon Valley) could create a
system that lowers that price to pennies per loan that disruption it would be
a positive thing.

And then we’d be even further along path we are on now-that we need libraries,
but do libraries need books?

~~~
davegauer
Your experience mirrors mine exactly: we would go broke if we had to buy all
of the picture books we checked out for our kids (sometimes on the order of
20/week). And for myself, the inter-library loan has been incredibly useful
(especially for recent popular science titles).

I also appreciate being able to browse the small selection of fiction/non-
fiction at our local branch. As with the bookstore, I often pick up things I
wouldn't dream of searching for online and would therefore never have found.

I likewise wish my library system had more of a "long tail" stored
somewhere.[1] Older books (no matter how popular and well-known they were at
one time) are often simply not available.

I had practically written off libraries when I was in my 20s:

* The hours didn't mesh well with my work schedule

* I could afford to buy whatever I was interested in

* They never had the up-to-date programming books I wanted/needed

That has changed completely now that I'm a parent. And yes, I do think
libraries need books. Communities need books. This stuff needs to be
available, even if just in principle.

I was skeptical but surprised to find that my local library system has one
copy each of:

* Introduction to Algorithms

* The Art of Computer Programming (vol 1)

* The Pragmatic Programmer

But the list of computer science classics they _don 't_ have is far larger.
What they _do_ have are a ton of of titles like _Teach Yourself Visual
Basic.NET in 21 Days_ (real) and _Excel 14.2.32.rev13 for Boneheads_ (made
up). No doubt it reflects what patrons are requesting...but I would personally
wish for a collection that leans a little more heavily on the perennial
classics.

[1]
[http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april06/dempsey/04dempsey.html](http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april06/dempsey/04dempsey.html)

~~~
Fomite
They might accept donations ;) I'm only half kidding - there's a local library
in a place I used to live that has a very solid collection of epidemiology
books thanks to downsizing my collection.

------
ironjunkie
I think there is a growing sentiment of disdain of Silicon Valley and tech in
general. And I can see why, and it is getting more and more justified.

As this article states, that arrogance to think that everything should/can be
"disrupted". Usually the argument for disruption is always around another
version of "making the world a better place", while it is very clear that the
main motivation is to make a couple tech CEOs and tech workers even richer.

~~~
ianai
Ime, the “disrupted” products I’ve purchased were way over priced and fragile
or worthless. Not just from amazon either. Oh and of course they come with
daily spam.

~~~
ryandrake
Don’t forget they also phone home with too much data about you and try to
second guess you. I’m about ready to throw away my “smart” thermostat and
replace it with a model from the 1980s with a dial that stays where I set it
and no unnecessary internet connectivity.

~~~
mmt
After trying a couple of the other "internet" thermostats (not Nest, though,
that was too obviously creepy), I ended up springing for a Proliphix IMT550c,
which I had to wait for a while to show up on eBay, since they stopped selling
direct to consumers quite a while back.

It's not exactly _open_ , but it's reasonably hackable, and works just fine
with no direct access to the Internet. I've never tried the wifi model
(replace the "c" in the model with a "w", IIRC), since avoiding wireless
issues was part of what drove me to this model in the first place.

Security's almost completely absent, so you'd want to keep it on an isolated
network with no direct Internet access, anyway.

------
AdmiralAsshat
The best thing a library can do in this day and age is support something like
Overdrive, which lets people with a library card digitally rent books to
deliver to their Kindle or E-reader. Mine fortunately does, and despite the
limited selection, it's great: I can check stuff out without even leaving
home. The "books" are automatically returned after the check-out period.

That's it. If Silicon Valley wants to help, they can work on enhancing the
technology that allows stuff like that to work. If they want to _replace_ a
bedrock of this country's public services with private, for-profit
infrastructures, they can go pound sand.

~~~
maxxxxx
In the end Silicon Valley wants to make money and control the distribution of
content. They hate the principle of libraries and would kill them off quickly.

------
jerkstate
When I was a young child, the library was a place for me to go to sit on a
beanbag and read childrens books for hours while my mom studied for her
masters degree. Now 2/3 of library patrons are homeless or struggling with
addiction, and some parents may not wish to leave their children unattended in
such an environment. I don't think Amazon has the answers but I see a natural
tension between welcoming vagrants and making people with children
comfortable.

~~~
geebee
That was a downside of the angle this article took. It makes the case for
libraries on the grounds that they offer a place for addicts and homeless to
be safe and sheltered and get basic support in accessing services. That's
valuable, but it makes a library sound like a place where social workers deal
with poverty and other social ills and field questions about how and where to
get help. And while many people would support this, they'd support it in the
same way they'd support a homeless shelter or government program to provide
assistance for low income immigrants who speak limited English. I really don't
want to come off as knocking the value a library adds here, those are worthy
contributions. But overall, I think it does give a very limited impression of
how libraries are valuable to the community overall.

I'm encouraged by the stores people have left about the role the library
functions in their own community. I bring my kids to the branch libraries in
San Francisco regularly, and I'd like to reassure people that they are
generally safe and clean places for kids and other members of the community.

~~~
yontherubicon
I am 100% in favor of public libraries, and I think that the ones we have are
too ill stocked, particularly in their classics sections. Necessarily, I am in
favor of increasing funding.

However, my response to this article was "Let's just get rid of the things."
An unsafe library is a useless one.

~~~
geebee
Yeah... this article defended libraries on the grounds that they are
simultaneously a great place for kids to have story time, a safe place for
teens, and a place where 2/3s are homeless, struggling with addiction, or
recovering from addiction.

Now, we don't know the actual breakdown of that 2/3s group, and there
certainly are homeless people (including homeless children) who are not
addicts and benefit immensely from the public library system. But it's not a
great sales pitch to tell people that children's story time will be colocated
in an area populated largely by "current and receiving addicts", and people
who are 100% in favor of paying for meth addiction treatment centers may
reasonably question why we'd store our large and expensive public book
collection there.

Keep in mind, if libraries feel unsafe (perhaps because they are unsafe),
wealthy people will find somewhere else for story time and books, it's the low
income populations that will be denied this essential resource.

This is partly why, in my previous comment, I wanted to emphasize that many of
the branch libraries around SF absolutely do feel safe, and are very welcoming
and clean places for kids.

------
brianzelip
Libraries provide lots of value for non-“impoverished, underserved, and most
vulnerable populations” too. I manage a maker space in an academic library on
a health sciences campus. I collaborate with researchers to bring new ideas to
life, and provide free public workshops around emerging technologies (for
example, creating a 3D printable anatomical model from CT scan data,
leveraging GitHub for scholarship, and more). My colleagues provide
instructional workshops as well, and collaborate with researchers around
systematic reviews, bioinformatics, and research data management.

~~~
Fomite
I make all my graduate students make an appointment with a research librarian
when they start working on their dissertation.

I may have told one of them, in a fairly serious tone, that "Librarians know
the deep magics." Because _man_ a good librarian will solve all kinds of
problems you didn't even know you had.

...I have a meeting with one on Monday to talk about archiving a government
website that went down due to budget cuts, taking one of the most
comprehensive collections of clinical guidelines down with it.

------
mcguire
" _I refuse to accept that everything must be “disrupted” and turned into a
moneymaking machine for tech elites. It’s absurd to suggest that Silicon
Valley look to profit from one of the few institutions available across the
entire country that doesn’t exist to make money for someone else._

" _Libraries are irreplaceable. Either discuss providing more funding for the
invaluable work we do, or leave them alone._ "

The Forbes editorial was spectacularly bizarre. Amazon?

Weird that they're taken it down.

------
Jun8
"Yo, que me figuraba el Paraíso / Bajo la especie de una biblioteca. (I have
always imagined Paradise as a kind of library)." \- Borges

Libraries, as physical places, have a sanctity about them and every discussion
on "replacing libraries" have to take this into account, I think. It's the
place where many people had their first ad hoc meeting with great writers
there and had their _real_ education, a notable example is Bukowski: "John
Fante’s minor classic “Ask the Dust”; the book, which Bukowski accidentally
discovered in the stacks of the Los Angeles Central Library, made a huge
impression on him"
([https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/03/14/smashed](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/03/14/smashed)).

This, the random browsing among physical books, is the most important aspect
of a library for me, I usually spend 90% of my time in libraries doing
precisely that.

After I had my son I also came to appreciate the children's area and the
activities there in our local library (e.g. write a letter to our hamster").
The PC help function mentioned in the article also seems to important and
popular.

As for being a sanctuary for homeless people or those struggling with
addiction: My anecdotal experience has been that such patrons are a usually
disruptive (and sometimes frightening) influence in most city libraries. They
usually use the space to sleep (snoring is forbidden though!) and for other
activities.

It's hard to come up with a better solution, though.

------
kashyapc
Slightly related: I was recently remote-working from a peaceful book café and
discovered this just-released book titled _Book Towns_ [1] sitting sitting
across me. I flipped through it and immediately bought it. Have a gander at
it. From its description:

 _The so-called “Book Towns” of the world are dedicated havens of literature,
and the ultimate dream of book lovers everywhere. Book Towns takes readers on
a richly illustrated tour of the 40 semi-officially recognized literary towns
around the world and outlines the history and development of each community,
and offers practical travel advice._

And here's[2] an article (written by the author) about it in The Guardian.

[https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/apr/26/10-worlds-
bes...](https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/apr/26/10-worlds-best-book-
towns-france-spain-south-korea-usa)

[1] [https://www.quartoknows.com/books/9780711238930/Book-
Towns.h...](https://www.quartoknows.com/books/9780711238930/Book-Towns.html)

------
zitterbewegung
All of the local libraries near me have a 3D printer. One library close by
offers a coworkers space I can borrow a Roku and aLaptop. . Libraries don't
need distruption they are already doing it themselves.

~~~
Fricken
My local libraries are converting into makerspaces. They have green screens,
sound studios, mac pros with Adobe creative suite software, 3D printers, Lego
mindstorms, and a bunch of other stuff. Knowledge that can be printed is now
abundant, but vernacular knowledge remains scarce, and the libraries in my
city are becoming a storehouse for that knowledge. It's pretty cool.

~~~
glup
out of interest, what city?

~~~
spamizbad
Not OP, but the Chicago Public Library system has essentially those amenities
available at the Harold Washington Library Center.

------
jeffrogers
Libraries cache significant bits of history, especially local history. This
history conatins source material not found anywhere else. The Internet is
amazing, but Internet companies have no incentive to retain our history in
perpetuity. All others benefits aside, this is enough to justify libraries in
every community.

~~~
yontherubicon
There are tons of documents relevant to the local community that have no home
_but_ the local library, yet might be tremendously valuable for those who have
roots there. Libraries are an essential community staple.

------
rainbowmverse
A whole lot of people in here are discovering their tax dollars collectively
fund a wonderland of knowledge, tools, and access they had no idea about. It's
great.

Go to your local library today.

------
songzme
I sympathize with the author. My nonprofit is working with our local library
to provide coding bootcamp for anyone who wants to learn (for free). We've
been piloting for 3 months in San Jose and the whole experience has been very
eyeopening to me.

One of our students, Mani, couldn't afford a laptop. He would go to the
library when it opens to work on a website and hopes that he could one day
make ad revenue. He was able to find books, borrow a laptop, and learn by
himself. There are many people like him who finds solace in the library
because it is one of the few places left that doesn't try to sell you
something. At the library, they feel welcome.

In the past 3 months I've seen more diversity than I have ever seen in my
career at Silicon Valley. People of all races and all walks of life come to
learn and it was an amazing sight watching college students learn and teach
alongside with adults making a career switch.

I love the library and what it represents: A non judgemental place that
welcomes everybody to come learn. It would break my heart to see it become
part of an organization that optimizes for profit margins. Here's the
webarchive link to the original Forbes article:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20180722160053/https://www.forbe...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180722160053/https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2018/07/21/amazon-
should-replace-local-libraries-to-save-taxpayers-money/)

~~~
Fomite
"...one of the few places left that doesn't try to sell you something."

I think this is hugely important. The library is a third space that _doesn 't_
require spending money.

~~~
singhrac
This is really important - Starbuck's (mostly successful) attempts to become
the central third space in city centers is almost definitely leading to class
divides.

Libraries are one of the few refuges left.

------
peter_vukovic
Why would anyone put Amazon and a library in the same sentence is beyond me,
let alone contrast and compare them then argue against libraries. The Forbes
editorial in question should be publicly displayed in all libraries as an
example of poor judgment and lack of civility. Bizzare.

~~~
wu-ikkyu
Sounds like sponsored content.

------
tekstar
If libraries didn't exist yet and someone came up with the idea in 2018, they
would get laughed out of the room.

This is why we must fight for their survival - if we lose them we won't be
getting them back any time soon.

------
triviatise
Austin just built a $150 million library which is a huge waste of money, if
all it did was provide a storehouse for books.

However, it is a community center where the community can get together. That
is one of _the_ key charges of a city. Libraries are like parks, while parks
let us recreate outdoors, libraries let us recreate intellectually indoors,
and athletic centers let us recreate physically indoors.

The austin library has kitchens for cooking classes etc. Conference rooms for
community groups, class rooms, etc.

We had a techshop, but they couldnt survive. Techshop is exactly the type of
thing a library could provide. Access to machines and education on how to
design and build things.

While I voted against the bond that funded the library, I recognize that there
is definitely value that the "free market" cant provide.

The same goes for parks, hike/bike trails, nature preserves, museums, pools,
athletic centers etc.

------
moate
Archivists. Nobody is talking about archivists. Many public libraries has
physical archives that can't be digitized (clothes, memorabilia, etc) that
needs to be preserved and taken care of. They serve to supplement and support
museums and universities with these materials.

Every anti-library piece that comes out generally boils down to "I don't use a
library, and have little to no idea what services many of them provide outside
of books. Therefor, someone who's better at books could take their place, and
the free market is better than the state being in charge of this sort of
stuff!" Not everything can, or should, be run like a business.

------
gdubs
I'm a HUGE fan of libraries, but it seems this article is really underscoring
a need for better homeless shelters and community centers. Personally, I'm in
favor of my tax money going towards _both_.

Libraries, on the surface, are about providing access to knowledge and tools.
But by their nature they also provide sanctuary – in a similar way to a church
or temple. They're quiet, often beautiful, inviting... Those qualities are why
you can't just digitize the experience.

------
bmmayer1
Does anyone have a link to the archived original (now deleted) article? It's
not possible to truly evaluate a critical piece without reading the piece it's
responding to.

------
yontherubicon
I must say I'm rather dissappointed in the writing quality of someone who
purports to be an MFA candidate in Creative NonFiction. Though this may be
more the fault of the blogstyle medium than antyhing else.

It is still better than the middle-school level writing of the editorial the
author is responding to.

As for the points made therein, I'm a bit disgusted. The library was conceived
as a place for anyone to go to elevate himself by learning. It is meant for a
kind of public education. It is not a homeless shelter. Miss Oliver's claim
that the library must exist to shelter the low detracts from it's original
purpose, to educate the young and old.

Furthermore, Miss Oliver's argument, that we should keep the libraries for the
homeless and the addicts jettisons the role of the library as a community
center. How can one be comfortable leaving their children at a library when
75% of the patrons are current/former addicts and or homeless?

I love libraries. I grew up in them. I don't think Amazon should replace them
(though I do think Amazon would do well to sponsor them, utilizing their
distribution channels, repository of ebooks, and even publishing library
editions via their print-on-demand services). However, Miss Olivers essay is
more an argument to end libraries rather than to save them.

~~~
UncleEntity
> Furthermore, Miss Oliver's argument, that we should keep the libraries for
> the homeless and the addicts jettisons the role of the library as a
> community center.

A lot of homeless people are just having a bit of bad luck and a few steps in
the right direction will have them be non-homeless people is short order. If
you live paycheck to paycheck and then don't have a paycheck anymore then
things go bad real quick.

> How can one be comfortable leaving their children at a library when 75% of
> the patrons are current/former addicts and or homeless?

The main Phoenix library has a whole floor dedicated to teens and apparently
enforce it as I heard some "homeless addicts" talking about getting kicked off
the floor really quickly the last time I was there.

It makes a lot more sense now.

~~~
yontherubicon
> A lot of homeless people are just having a bit of bad luck and a few steps
> in the right direction will have them be non-homeless people is short order.
> If you live paycheck to paycheck and then don't have a paycheck anymore then
> things go bad real quick.

I absolutely sympathize, and I think that safety nets are important insofar as
we as a society can guarantee them. However, the library is not the place for
that. If someone is homeless and wishes to spend their time reading, then so
be it. However, most people are homeless due to mental illness, not lack of
jobs. And drug addicts have non-negligible increased rates of criminality and
impulsive or violent behavior.

Libraries, as halls of learning, and thus for a people centered around
learning, a community center, must be safe.

------
timwaagh
so american libraries are actually free then? where i am they are not.

merely cheap. they get used as internet cafes with a bunch of bookshelves
gathering dust. getting books is something that has already largely been
replaced as the most useful books are the ones they do not have. yes the
service is primarily used by poor people. also by me. but i am pretty sure the
market can fill the gap of 'internet cafe'. in fact i'd love it if one opened
up here again.

i am not sure whether i like subsidizing librarian salaries and especially
maintaining a useless librarian education program with my tax pay. I just dont
think its justified to send people to school for four years to learn for this.

also their opening times are sub-par because it is the public sector.
privatisation would benefit me, as they'd quickly realize internet cafes would
need to stay open in the evening. right now they just outcompete private
internet cafes. not because they are cheaper, but because they have superior
marketing presence, paid for with tax.

i have nothing against librarians. like the author says they are usually nice
people who are indeed quite willing to help. i am sure the trade will continue
to exist, just like we still have postmen internet cafes would still need
attendants to help people use the computers and the printer.

------
neuromantik8086
As someone who works in an academic library (which has very different needs
from a public library), while I would disagree that libraries need
"disruption" (which conjures up imagery of a librarian shushing me in the
stacks for talking), there is a real need for tech talent. Most techies are
lured away from programming for libraries by the private sector, which leaves
us with an overabundance of clunky, expensive software with high technical
debt.

~~~
neuromantik8086
Another problem is that librarians themselves sometimes don't have the
technical (in the sense of computing literacy; "technical" is a bit of loaded
term in libraries because it can refer to collection maintenance [0]) skills
necessary to do well in their jobs. Sometimes this is due to the era the
librarian started in (a lot of librarians got their MLIS degree before
computing was as prominent as it is now and haven't adapted to changes brought
about by technology), other times this is due to curricular shortcomings in
library schools (anecdotally, the University of Michigan, University of
Washington and University of Indiana-Bloomington library schools seem to be
exceptions to this).

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_technical_services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_technical_services)

~~~
tingletech
Interesting, on the other hand I've worked with a lot of technically
sophisticated librarians and archivists.

------
AlphaWeaver
Speaking from a perspective of working in [one of the nicest libraries in the
world][0], I think there's definitely room for technology to continue
improving libraries and offering additional services, while continuing to
maintain the heart and soul of what a library is. My library mentioned above
may have discovered an insanely innovative way of storing books, but that
allows the staff to help us more, not be reduced or replaced by computers. I
think if all libraries strike this delicate balance, we'll be in good shape.

[0]:
[https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/huntlibrary](https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/huntlibrary)

------
rayiner
The "libraries provide Internet access for poor people" argument is incredibly
disingenuous. To use an example: My county spends about $22 million per year
on its library system. There's about 500,000 people, about 5.9% of whom are
under the poverty line. For what we spend on libraries, we could pay for a 4G
smartphone and 4G LTE service to literally every single man, woman, and child
under the poverty line. And we would have money left over to pay for targeted
support services to teach people how to use them.

And unlike libraries, that would be a benefit almost everyone would actually
use.

~~~
rainbowmverse
You should go to a library some time.

------
sizzzzlerz
What joyless world it would be without libraries. Mine is in the heart of
Silicon Valley. I visit nearly every week to exchange read books, videos, and
CDs for new material. On Saturday morning, the parking lot is nearly full at
opening time. Patronage is multi-cultural, reflecting the demongraphics of my
city. The librarians are helpful and friendly. In recent elections, we've
approved measures to increase property taxes to pay for extended hours, new
materials, and other library activities. I'm sure there are libertarians that
may think we're fools who enjoy paying taxes. To that, I give a hearty "fuck
off"! A community is more that just low taxes and our library reflects that. I
would strongly fight against anyone proposing we replace it with Amazon or any
other entity that would never care except as a money-making center.

------
strictnein
Way too much attention being paid to this topic because of an article by
someone no one has ever heard of, which he paid over $1000 to publish.

------
nojvek
“I refuse to accept that everything must be “disrupted” and turned into a
moneymaking machine for tech elites. It’s absurd to suggest that Silicon
Valley look to profit from one of the few institutions available across the
entire country that doesn’t exist to make money for someone else.”

This is a powerful stamenent. Love it!

------
pkaye
Is it really Silicon Valley disruption? It was just a Forbes writer who
suggested it.

------
crb002
If I had the funds I would found a mercantile library in Des Moines. Publics
are horrid for STEM books. Research universities are remote in the US. The
skilled trades from plumbing to programming get marginalized by everyone.

------
tanilama
Disruption recipe:

1\. Claim something is not working, by mere claiming it.

2\. Raising capital to subsidize the business and force the trafitional
competitor out of the game.

3\. Get hefty evaluation

4\. Once reach the dominant market position, raise the price and profit :)

------
benkarst
Libraries aren't so much about books, they're about a place where the homeless
people can gather and read them.

Seriously, I love libraries. I think we should apply the same idea for gyms.

------
HeadsUpHigh
Just what kind of broken, corrupt soul puts the terms library and disruption
in the same sentence and thinks "hmm, that makes sense"...

------
nicodjimenez
Libraries have already been disrupted and in fact have mostly pivoted to
providing free internet to people who need it.

------
mannykannot
I would like to see Mourdoukoutas live by his own principles and eschew his
university's library and its no doubt extensive access to paywalled services,
and use Amazon exclusively and at his own expense.

------
neuromantik8086
As an aside, it's not super well publicized, but anyone in NYC can access
Lynda.com for free via the NYPL.

~~~
zjaffee
I believe the same is true for anyone in Los Angeles as well.

------
FrozenVoid
If libraries are so good, why students in US pay fortunes for books they need
for studying?

~~~
PurpleBoxDragon
Because the students judge the utility of having a textbook available as worth
the price (or in some cases the text books come with a code that you have to
have to pass the class). Same reason a book collector may prefer buying a book
over checking it out at the library.

It is like asking if cooking for for yourself is so cheap and healthy, why do
people eat out so much.

------
ajuc
Piratebay + google is the ultimate library.

Sadly it's illegal because it works too well.

------
pravinva
Can someone explain why a librarian needs to study library science,if the
primary job of libraries today now is to act as a community center and a place
for people in trouble to get help. Maybe they should hire people who are
social workers

~~~
Fomite
Library science can include, but is not limited to:

\- Setting up and maintaining the kinds of programs people are talking about,
be that resume editing or maker spaces, etc.

\- The finding and sorting of information. Note that's constantly one of the
problems mentioned in the article - it's not just _access_ to the internet,
but the ability to use it to find very specific information.

------
jmpman
[https://wikileaks.org/clinton-
emails/emailid/18157](https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/18157)

~~~
sedachv
The US government subsidizing Amazon in lieu of public libraries is
disgusting.

------
frgtpsswrdlame
So Forbes takes the op-ed down and says:

 _“Forbes advocates spirited dialogue on a range of topics, including those
that often take a contrarian view,” a Forbes spokesperson says in a statement.
“Libraries play an important role in our society. This article was outside of
this contributor’s specific area of expertise, and has since been removed.”_
[0]

Forbes op-ed's are filled to the brim with people speculating about things
that are not their specific area of expertise and yet none of it is removed. I
think this article was supposed to be a submarine [1] which went viral in a
negative context and so has been quickly swept away.

[0] [https://qz.com/1334123/forbes-deleted-an-op-ed-arguing-
that-...](https://qz.com/1334123/forbes-deleted-an-op-ed-arguing-that-amazon-
should-replace-libraries/)

[1]
[http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

~~~
howard941
The fact the piece was taken down from the web supports the need for physical
libraries where access and preservation trump spur-of-the-moment reactions.
It's much harder to deep-six elements of collections from IRL libraries.

------
ben_jones
You mean libraries wouldn't be better with ads?

------
squozzer
I will argue in favor of preserving "libraries" but let's first point out some
flaws in author's reasoning.

>But libraries are not just a place to find books — they’re one of the few
places that provide a number of free services to the American public.

Tax-payer funded != free.

>Some two-thirds of our regular patrons fall into one of three categories:
homeless, struggling with addiction, or recovering from addiction.

Homeless shelter / addict sanctuary != library.

>Libraries are irreplaceable. Either discuss providing more funding for the
invaluable work we do, or leave them alone.

I find the author's position a little binary or maybe unimaginative. What
might help everyone - including taxpayers - is to re-think the community
center model.

If the library building is primarily a convenient refuge for addicts and
indigents, then we should optimize for _that_. Fewer books, more bathrooms.

If we still want to have publicly-accessible book repositories, could we
combine them with other forms of community services, such as recreation?

~~~
pretendscholar
>Tax-payer funded != free.

That is the most pedantic, useless point that makes no contribution to the
conversation. No direct charge for each patron is the obvious way you are
supposed to interpret free.

