
Rumors of the library's demise have been greatly exaggerated - joewooglin
http://www.itworld.com/big-data/337892/rumors-librarys-demise-have-been-greatly-exaggerated
======
acabal
If anything, libraries will stick around as public places where people can sit
freely and do something in silence. In the US, especially in suburbia, it's
almost impossible to find a space where you can sit and do whatever you please
without having to buy something or feel guilty for taking up a table. (Yes
parks, but in many places that's only feasible for half the year.)

Libraries are one of the last places where you can just sit and work or study
or read in a public space, and whenever I go to my local ones the tables are
always filled with people of all ages doing just that.

~~~
jmspring
Sad thing in the town I live in, the downtown library has become a magnate for
local homeless to bath and sleep during the day, making a number of families
and other patrons uncomfortable. The downtown library gets the bulk of the
funding at the expense of some of the outer branches.

I wonder how this whole thing is playing out across other parts of the US.

~~~
brudgers
I grew up in Orlando. The homeless in the library is not a new phenomenon and
I am reminded of a funny story..

It was the late 80's, flannel shirts were not uncommon male attire and I was
cultivating the "Jim Morrison: the LA woman years" look as I walked out of the
Orange County Public Library's downtown branch and climbed into my dented turd
brown '74 Mercury Comet with four doors and carcinomic vinyl top and headed
home. One block later, I notice one of Orlando's finest cruisers behind me me.
I drove slow in those days not that the Comet's little straight six and three
on the tree offered any other option besides not running at all.

Left turn at the Junior High. It's pacing me - past the light at Central,
under the East-West, across Anderson and just over the rise he hits his
lights. I pull to the curb and stop. I look in my mirror. Holy Shit! He's got
his gun drawn and is yelling at me to show my hands. They're up. I'm to reach
out and use the outside latch. The door is open and he's yelling at me to get
out. I can't. He's yelling, I'm yelling that my seat belt is buckled.

I have to put my hand out of sight while we are yelling. I get out. I lay on
the street. Spread eagle. The gun is against my occipital lobe while I'm
cuffed. The lieutenant arrives. They've run my plate. He's got my license. My
car and I live four doors down from Glenda. They thought my car was stolen
from Michigan. Despite the Orange County tag. Glenda is a city commissioner.
Later she becomes mayor and then Secretary of State. I ain't going to jail.
They don't even search the car. Turns out it's all just a misunderstanding.

This was before the militarization of the police. Before Giuliani's broken
window policies. Back before the prison economy really took off. Even before
Rush Limbaugh made popular jokes about the homeless and dumpsters to set the
stage for conservative meanness.

I hope the homeless using the library is playing out differently from my low
expectations. But I doubt it.

------
DanBC
In the UK more people take books out of the library than buy new books.

([http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/leading-
artic...](http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/leading-article-
libraries-can-prosper--if-they-change-7582458.html))

> _While 200 million books are sold every year, more than 310 million are
> borrowed._

------
axusgrad
There are some things we can download from our local library without
travelling there.

<http://www.dclibrary.org/downloads>

And, with a library card, we can download 3 songs a week.

------
dougk16
Last summer I was searching for a quiet place to work outside the house, and
was really racking my brain. I finally thought hey, library! But wait, do they
still have those things? Of course they do, so I thought great, that place
will be like a morgue. Wow, it was _hopping_ with young, old, everything in
between, on a summer weekday. In fact it was so distracting that I had to
leave and hit up a starbucks for some relative quiet.

------
hnriot
Just think how much useful it would be to spend the money we waste on
libraries on schools instead. My local libraries multi-million dollar
extension is a hard pill to swallow when I see teachers cut, after school
programs cut etc etc. Sure, libraries are great when we have an economic
surplus, but right now I see them as a huge waste of money. The homeless use
them for the bathrooms, and parents use them for free after school child care.
In my library the only things in use are the chairs and computers. The books
just get in the way. They are outdated and a luxury we can no longer afford.

~~~
jbattle
where are you (roughly) if you don't mind me asking? Libraries seem like a
local thing, and I wonder how much use of them varies from state to state &
across the urban - rural spectrum.

