California Cuts All State Funding for Libraries

http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/home/893065-264/with_mid-year_cut_california_reduces.html.csp

by MRonney • 14 years ago

70 66 14 years ago

libraryjournal.com

ncavig• 14 years ago

Seriously?

rorrr4• 14 years ago

As much as I love libraries, they are extremely inefficient considering their purpose.

pagekalisedown• 14 years ago

Most libraries have moved beyond just renting out books a while ago.

baddox• 14 years ago

What do they do now? I know some provide desks, wifi, services like fax and copy machines (which they usually charge for), and public classes (reading clubs, basic computer classes, etc.).

Volpe• 14 years ago

Which purpose are you ascribing the inefficiency to?

rorrr4• 14 years ago

Spreading information.

bpodgursky2• 14 years ago

It depends on whether you consider the purpose as technically enabling the spreading of information/books, or actually encouraging people to go and read and study. Sure people are able to go and buy or download each of the books in there, but IMO kids still gain a ton from wandering around the stacks until they find something interesting. It's also a good way to impress upon kids the huge amount of gathered knowledge out there, and how important it is to make use of it...

rorrr4• 14 years ago

I think modern kids are online already, and are exposed to all kinds of information. No library in the world can even come close to Wikipedia + Google image search.

ww520• 14 years ago

Libraries are extremely valuable for their purposes.

kiloaper• 14 years ago

You seem to have a very narrow view of what libraries provide. Libraries, at least where I'm from, are far more than book storage facilities. They're essential community centers which promote education, literacy and social interaction. They host events from kids competitions to senior citizens groups. You can't replicate that online.

rsanchez1• 14 years ago

Today's reading of Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat is brought to you by the letters M&M.

It's the new reality facing California libraries. Either that, or just close down. Seeing how county and city governments in California are more concerned with telling porn studios how to conduct their business, the libraries are gonna run out of money very quickly.

olefoo• 14 years ago

The phrase "Eating the seed corn." comes to mind.

Also the old anarchist saw:

   "Libraries will get you through times of no money better
   than money will get you through times of no libraries"

tzs• 14 years ago

Wikipedia says that comes from Anne Herbert in "The Next Whole Earth Catalog". Are you sure it has an anarchist connection?

It's probably inspired by this earlier quote from Gilbert Shelton's wonderful "The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers" comix:

   "Dope will get you through times of no money
    better than money will get you through times
    of no dope."

itmag3• 14 years ago

It may be an old saw but I sure never heard it before. Thanks.

I'm curious about anarchist thought on libraries, mind telling me more?

HaloZero• 14 years ago

Doesn't this mean that all public libraries will just shut down or do public libraries in california have other sources of revenue (federal money perhaps?)

bpodgursky2• 14 years ago

I don't know about libraries in California specifically, but traditionally libraries get most of their funding at the municipal level (funded by the cities).

nknight2• 14 years ago

The San Jose library system alone runs a budget much larger than the total of these programs. The programs being cut are supplementary funding, most library funds come from local taxes.

It's going to be a major problem for some libraries, especially in poorer and/or more rural areas, but it's not a total state-wide catastrophe.

Edit: By the way, for more context, the library in my relatively wealthy city (Santa Clara) of 120,000 people, had a budget last year of $6,847,849. That's for one main library location and one small branch.

Derbasti• 14 years ago

What a sad, sad statement of a government.

The most important resource any country has is intelligent people. Cutting library funding is cutting general education for the masses. It is actively dumbing down populous.

learc833• 14 years ago

I think it's more a reflection of the decline in paper books as tool for education.

I've always loved libraries, but our local branch functions more as an internet cafe than a library.

>The most important resource any country has is intelligent people.

When I was younger my local library was a gathering place for students, and scholars (the intelligent people you mentioned). However, the last time I went, it was primarily full of people who couldn't afford internet access surfing Facebook.

Mvandenbergh• 14 years ago

That's true, but for 15%-20% of the population, libraries are more or less the only place where they can access the internet. Considering how many transactions are now carried out online, providing cheap/free internet access is actually a pretty good idea (and saves money overall when the paperwork savings from their interactions with government agencies are taken into account).

Lazare2• 14 years ago

I yield to no one in my steadfast love of libraries, and I'm sure that the state government could have found better places to make cuts. However...

...this would be slightly more interesting if it wasn't only a 3% cut to the funding of Californian libraries.

(Well, according to my back of the envelope calculation. The linked article claims the entire $30m of state funding has been cut. As of 2007, Californian libraries were apparently getting total funding (federal, state and local) of $26.47 per person. The population of California is 37m in 2009, which implies that California has total library spending of around $920m/year. And $30m is only 3% of $920m. To crosscheck, I found a report from 2000 that estimates total US library spending at $12b/year, and since California has around 12% of the total US population, that would imply around a $1.5b/year in spending. I assume spending has gone up quite a bit since then, so $920m/year certainly doesn't seem too high. I'd welcome better numbers if anyone can find them!)

Again, I don't support these cuts. But the article lacks context, and what context I can find from a few minutes of searching makes this seem very underwhelming.

(Related: back in around 2003 some people loved to talk about how Bush had increased federal education spending by 70% in his first three years. Quite true, but quite misleading if you didn't know that it was being increased from a base of effectively nil, since the federal government isn't responsible for education. Context matters!)

nknight2• 14 years ago

Actually, the article has plenty of context for its intended audience. It specifies that it's state funding, lists the programs being cut, and notes the primary concern of advocates: equal access.

The publication is called "Library Journal". It's not intended for the general public, it's intended for librarians and others concerned with the operation of libraries. That audience will have no trouble understanding the article.

Lazare2• 14 years ago

You're right, and I was not intending to criticize the article as such, but rather the submission. It is relevant, important news to librarians, and contained all the context it needed.

But I doubt one person in 100 who saw it on Hacker News had that context. And in particular, I suspect the people commenting on the article in apocalyptic terms do not have that context. But it was a perfectly fine article. :)

jbooth2• 14 years ago

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'd much prefer to see "this was the line item last year, and this is the line item this year", rather than saying some circumstantial evidence supersedes a black and white figure.

If he cut state funding to zero, he cut state funding to zero. If some municipalities can still afford to run libraries on their own dime, that doesn't really change the fact. Especially considering that federal grants have dried up and municipal budgets have tightened over the last 10 years.

wayne_h• 14 years ago

The government wants to raise taxes. (We are already the highest taxed state.) To soften up the voters they will threaten to cut things that are popular. Beaches, Parks, libraries, police, fire.. release the prisoners etc etc.. I say good go ahead... its scare tactics. Even if they do cut these things then maybe enough people will notice and throw them out. They recently announced cutting funding to animal shelters, so strays will be killed in a 72 hours.

In other news... it was recently revealed that parking lot attendants at the Dept Of Water earn $74,000 per year. LA city has a $1M yacht (they kept hidden). They used $500K in obama 'stimulus money' to install new engines.

Starve the beast. No more money. Wake-up voters - dont be fooled.

benmccann• 14 years ago

We actually pay taxes comparable to other states (California is 23rd in tax revenue per capita), but have our taxes distributed much differently. Things we pay higher taxes on: 14th in revenue per capita deriving from property taxes, 12th in income taxes per capita, 21st in sales tax per capita, 5th in corporate tax revenue per capita, 4th in estate taxes per capita. Things we bring in less revenue from: 35th in lottery revenue per capita, 32nd in cigarette tax rate, 41st in excise taxes per capita.

rdl2• 14 years ago

I assume property tax revenues in CA are high mainly due to the high value of CA real estate, not that the rates themselves are high -- they're not high rates (compared to the East Coast, maybe 25-50%) and due to Prop 13, they're not at market rate on many properties.

CA tax is highly variable year to year -- 10.3% on capital gains (and other income) of rich people, largely happens based on business cycle factors. Same with corporate tax.

itmag3• 14 years ago

Can startups solve this problem somehow? After all, there is a market need for libraries, it just might not be obvious since it's somewhat hidden by the taxation model.

What would a free-market public library look like? And I'm not thinking McDonald's capitalism here, I'm thinking more like Google capitalism. What would the Gmail of public libraries be like?

The way I see it public libraries offer three things: physical books, physical locations, curators of content. So how could this be done in a different, startup-y way?

Physical books: maybe something involving print-on-demand technologies?

Physical locations: maybe something that piggybacks on existing physical locations?

Curators of content: I dunno, crowdsourced mobile/local/social librarians?

I am only half-kidding with this comment...

yummyfajitas5• 14 years ago

What would a free-market public library look like?

In India, it's a physical library just like the ones in the US.

You sign up as a member and pay a deposit. You also pay a per-book reading fee, as well as late fees if you don't bring the book back. If you fail to return the book you lose your deposit.

corin_4• 14 years ago

So basically it looks like a video rental store in the US/UK.

itmag3• 14 years ago

That would be like Gmail requiring a $10 fee / year. Much less appealing than free(mium).

Sure, public libraries are obviously not zero-cost, just as someone (most likely people who buy ads) pays for Gmail at some point, but they both feel that way.

telemachos• 14 years ago

There are still member-only, non-free libraries in the US. I live in NYC, and I can think of two walking distance from where I work.

It's a little out of date, but here's an article about such libraries:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/business/yourmoney/11libra...

ajays2• 14 years ago

I'm often surprised to see that few people get what's going on.

Jerry Brown wants to raise taxes (yet again). But the public at large is tired of waste, and refuses to go along.

So the Governor proposes cuts to those things that cause maximum pain to the public: state parks, libraries, etc. A fairer approach would, say, cut funding across the board. A $30M budget item in a $100Billion budget works out to, 0.03% ? If he did that, no one would notice and no one would yelp in pain. So, to drive the point home and make the public notice, you go for the public's soft spots.

The first thing Jerry Brown did when he took office was to sign contracts with the powerful unions in the state. Once they were happy, he turned around and started crying about the budget. Since their contracts are signed now, they can't be subject to these budget cuts; base secured!

California Cuts All State Funding for Libraries

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