

A Country Without Libraries - wyclif
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/may/18/country-without-libraries/

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CJefferson
I think many people underestimate the value of free books, particularly to
children.

When I was young I read 1 or 2 books a week, every week, for about 4 years. My
parents couldn't have afforded that many books. I could I suppose have dug
around in whatever some charity shop had to offer, but I don't think I would
have got such a rounded reading education.

~~~
GFischer
E-book readers will (I hope) prove to be a revolution in that point.

My country gave one laptop to every schoolchild, but I wish they'd consider
giving out e-book readers instead (or in addition to).

With the Gutenberg project and other resources, an enterprising child with the
reading bug should have plenty to chew on :) . OTOH, as a child I read stuff
due to being book-deprived which I probably wouldn't have read if I had had
access to other options (encyclopaedias from cover to cover, astronomy and
physics books, etc..)

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nagrom
When I was a kid, my local town had a 'leisure library'. It was a small-ish
facility (10m x 10m) filled with teenage-books, videos, a few computers (back
in 1994!) and consoles. The librarian operated a shop where you could buy
coke, pepsi, juice and snacks and there was a back-room filled with about 50
different board games, with a table that you could book to play on. There was
even an alcove with a projector and a video-player and a couple of sofas. The
librarian was a trained social worker who could offer all sorts of advice to
teenagers who had no other adult to ask.

I met a lot of new friends there, discovered a whole bunch of books and
authors, learned a lot about games and computers and had a great time. The
local authority closed it down after 5 years because it was unprofitable and
turned it into office space.

There's no way that the internet has the same possibility of offering a
social/learning/entertainment centre. This community-centre/lending-
centre/advice-centre model is the perfect thing for libraries to transition
towards - but it requires a lot of creativity from local authorities.

~~~
donw
I fail to understand why public services get shut down because they're 'not
profitable'. I don't want my government to be 'profitable', I want it to
provide services for the greater good of 'the people', of which I am
occasionally a member.

Police and fire departments don't get shut down because their EPS was well
below guidance, and schools aren't closed because they don't have a clear
revenue picture for the next quarter. Congress has been going for over two
hundred years and they've never once been in the black.

Yet libraries, parks, and public transit should all be 'profitable'? I'm
confused.

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latch
I'm not sure that I'm going to weep when the last library closes.

Let's put aside, just for a moment, the usefulness of libraries for people,
who don't otherwise have the means, to get on the internet. Does a library
really provide a service that the Internet can't better fulfill? I believe
that the internet is a better medium to distribute music, newspapers and
magazines, either commercially or as a social service. Why should books be any
different?

I truly believe that the death of libraries can be the result of positive
things. The internet can make more books more easily available to more people.
It can also do so more cheaply. We aren't there yet - but I don't see it being
a technical limitation at this point. It's unfortunate that people will lose
their jobs, but they aren't the first, nor the last, victims of technological
advancement.

Now, you still need to solve the problem of giving people access to the
internet. But surely, if we focus on solving this one problem, we can do so in
a more cost effective, and potentially better, way. If the main appeal of
libraries is that they have free access to the Internet, then I'm not sure
that's a strong argument in favor of libraries (as we know them).

~~~
michaelpinto
You're missing the entire point of what a library is — it isn't a collection
of books or computer terminals, but an educational community center. A good
reference liberian can help someone out of work to find a job, they can help a
business person do research or help someone navigate a government bureaucracy.
For kids libraries are really education centers — and they also double as a
meeting place for seniors. Libraries can house local history, be a showcase
for local artists and show films. Libraries are meeting places for local
organizations that focus on everything from a love of flowers to a chamber of
commerce. Just like a museum or a school isn't replaced by technology — a
library isn't replaced by technology.

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rwmj
Call them "local community centres" or "senior meeting places" in that case.

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michaelpinto
You're missing the point — that's like calling a your smart phone an mp3
player. Librarians are really educators who provide a resource for the
community. So it's a community center with a brain. And sadly the libraries
that are getting closed are in the communities that really need them the most.

~~~
latch
I'm not saying libraries are useless. I'm saying that much of their use is
better served by the internet. Find a job? Do research? Navigate government
documents? Even with respect to education we're seeing innovation from things
like the Khan Academy.

The internet won't/can't replace everything a library does. Like providing a
physical space, or services for elderly (which are often not connected).

That's _my_ point, that perhaps they should focus on the areas where they
truly serve a distinct (and valuable) service. Not only might they be more
successful by focusing on a narrow set of services, but they might become more
affordable to run.

~~~
ez77
_Find a job? Do research? Navigate government documents? Even with respect to
education we're seeing innovation from things like the Khan Academy._

If you expect the average citizen to do all those things online it may be
reasonable, maybe for a generation, to replace at least some of the gone
libraries by _Internet literacy centers_.

~~~
king_jester
This is the key point. Many, many people do not have the informational
literacy to even begin to do research work on their own in any medium, let
alone on the Internet.

Furthermore, many documents and resources aren't digitized and aren't on any
kind of networked computer or database, so how exactly is someone supposed to
access these materials and in a timely fashion? Librarians specialize in
knowing how to find and navigate those materials and sources.

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jswanson
I grew up in a small town, and were it not for the library may have gone
insane. Upon saving up enough for a computer of mine own and an internet
connection I visited less, but still treasured the place.

So I sympathize, but believe that we can make libraries unnecessary.

Subsidized or free municipal internet connectivity, already seen in some
communities, coupled with a greater commitment to making worthwhile material
available online, has the potential to do more good.

Instead of 215,000 copies of a reference book spread throughout the nations
libraries, buyout the rights to it or work out an arrangement to make it
available online.

Instead of cutting services like data.gov, expand upon them.

As to community connectedness and educating our children, focus on making our
schools better.

Libraries are, and have been a grand institution. But times change, and there
are better ways.

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adulau
I'm sad even if Internet replaces some aspects of a library. I'm still
wondering what replaces the lending process on Internet? Some years ago, I was
very happy to go to a library looking for a specific book and finding a
bookshelf containing the related books on a same topic. I'm leaving the
library with no one but four books on the topic I was looking for. That was
just for the price of the yearly subscription.

On Internet, you cannot go to an official library and have access to all the
books and download what you want for a yearly subscription of 5-7 EUR (that
was the price in the 80-90 nineties in Europe). The only similar service is
with the "Library Genesis" but it's not really considered to be an official
library... I'm sad because it excludes some future innovator to access
knowledge easy and cheaply.

~~~
b0rsuk
The internet is the biggest library and the biggest junkyard. I like it that
way. It has its charms.

There's another thing to like about libraries: information is nicely
organized, consistently of rather high quality (no lolcats). Librarians are
educated people, you go to an university (for example) to become one. When you
go to a library, you know you won't find much crap. It's the human-organized
information at its finest.

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motters
British libraries face a similar situation, but I don't expect libraries to
disappear altogether and they will probably enjoy a new phase of usage. As
another commenter notes, libraries are really community education centers and
there's currently a crisis in higher education, which is becoming increasingly
unaffordable for a large number of people whilst at the same time the economy
still demands well educated "knowledge workers". Probably not all of this gap
in education provision will be able to be filled by the internet. So there is
a need for something lower cost than current university courses, which doesn't
put students into unrealistic amounts of debt but which delivers a comparable
level of education and a qualification that carries some confidence.

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joe_the_user
It is immensely disheartening. It seems stupidly mean and meanly stupid.

The claim that this is a matter of mere budget pressure rather than _budget
priorities_ smacks of a vicious and improbable lie.

States which can still afford (at the minimum) massive prison systems allow
this to happen.

~~~
samlevine
Presumably when they close down the libraries the librarians don't turn to a
life of crime (though they may already be torrenting ebooks as if people
should be able to read for free).

~~~
pstuart
But they do shut the doors on patrons who might.

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zwieback
My town just passed a tax-increase to keep our library from cutting another
day from its schedule. It passed by a huge margin (although the senior center
and pool were lumped in so it's not clear exactly what was the driver.) Yay
for Corvallis.

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brandall10
Downtown San Diego is currently building a near $200M new central library.

[http://www.sandiego.gov/public-library/about-the-
library/new...](http://www.sandiego.gov/public-library/about-the-
library/newcentral.shtml)

The plans were created about 5-6 years back and the project was put put on
hold for 3 years. Living across the street from the site, pretty much everyone
in my neighborhood thought it was going to be scrapped. But some big donors
stepped in to help close the funding shortfall.

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zipdog
Without libraries, there is also the loss of public librarians, who have
traditionally been strong advocates for freedoms related to access to
materials, etc. I guess online their role is replaced by the EFF or similar.

If all tax dollars were collected by the municipalities and then a portion of
that passed up to state and federal budgets (instead of the municipalities
getting very little directly and needing to request money back from state and
federal budgets) would the same situation have emerged?

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StrawberryFrog
Relevant: [http://censoredgenius.blogspot.com/2011/05/fight-goes-
on.htm...](http://censoredgenius.blogspot.com/2011/05/fight-goes-on.html)

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nodata
If libraries aren't just glorified book lending centres, he should stop
complaining and suggest some ways to make them relevant again.

~~~
sliverstorm
Agreed. If all the libraries closed, I would be sad, but not because I
couldn't borrow books anymore. (Well, I'd probably be sad my kids would never
be able to borrow books like I did as a kid, which was great)

It would be sad because they are (or used to be) a hub of knowledge and
information, and that is why they are valuable.

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capedape
In my ideal world a library would be a combination of a hackerspace, techshop,
cafe, with areas to write/research and generally be inspired.

