Have you been to the library lately?

https://thewalrus.ca/future-of-libraries/

by gmays • 3 years ago

97 186 3 years ago

damnesian• 3 years ago

Now they have to deal with mental health episodes, the homelessness crisis, and random violence

And people who have jumped on the right-wing bandwagon trying to censor and control libraries have siezed on this, blaming libraries for endangering children. Really shameful behavior. Rather than solve social problems, let's demonize the few places where all people, if they behave themselves, are welcome.

ochoseis• 3 years ago

I love that I live in a city with a robust library system. I can borrow books online, and check out books from distant branches by having them moved to my local one. The last time I actually went into my local branch to do some focused reading every chair and table was filled with other folks doing the same thing. That is, except for one whole table that a homeless guy had commandeered to lay out his belongings, and was circling and grunting. The guy clearly needed the kind of help you’re not going to find in a library. My city shelters everyone, and has a generous safety net. I don’t know what else to do, but realized the library isn’t the place to go for a library-like atmosphere.

Luckily the library cordons off the children’s section on a separate floor where adults aren’t generally permitted.

seneca• 3 years ago

And people who have jumped on the right-wing bandwagon trying to censor and control libraries have siezed on this, blaming libraries for endangering children. Really shameful behavior.

When shared social resources are turned into political operatives, it's not the fault of the opposition when they are attacked. If you want something to be treated as neutral, it needs to act with neutrality.

2301421898• 3 years ago

If you want something to be treated as neutral, it needs to act with neutrality.

What constitutes "neutrality" is constantly changing. In order to remain politically neutral, in recent years, one would need to increasingly censor themselves.

For example, in 2019, wearing N95s during wildfire season to avoid inhaling smoke wasn't politically charged. Some people would wear them when outside and others didn't--nobody cared. This month, with wildfire smoke in the air, it has now become political (and decidedly not neutral) to say what was said in 2019--that N95s can help protect you from wildfire smoke.

PKop4• 3 years ago

Libraries have become dangerous harassment centers where drug addicts and people with mental problems congregate and assault normal people wanting to read books... and it's the group the opposes this, says it is absurd and should not be accepted and who want to get these people the hell out of the libraries who should feel shame?

No, I propose it is those that enable this problem and degrade our public spaces who should be ashamed.

karaterobot• 3 years ago

This isn't new by any means. It was one reason I swerved away from the profession after getting my MLIS degree almost twenty years ago. I like books, I don't want to be a babysitter or a first responder. Of course the other reason, very much related, is that the pay isn't great. I had a graduate degree and didn't make a living wage, and looking at the salary ladder I wasn't going to be making what a first-year developer made for like... 20 years to ever.

But I still go to the library almost every weekend.

Mezzie3• 3 years ago

Got mine 8 years ago and same. Granted, I also got MS and then was geographically restricted, but those are the reasons I haven't looked at employment at the local public libraries.

It's really depressing that the skills I have that are worth the most are those I learned as a child, but it is what it is.

samtho• 3 years ago

The library is one of the last places where you can exist without the expectation of buying something. I’m not some anti-capitalist at all, but I do recognize the role in which public facilities like the library play. Ideally, they provide a space essential for free and open access, within in a local community, free at the point of delivery.

secstate3• 3 years ago

That's a pretty brilliant observation. On nice days, public parks look similar to the library (and increasingly have the same vagrancy and drug problems, ha!). But public parks don't need staff like a library so it's less obvious who's job it should be to kick everyone out at night.

Terr_• 3 years ago

I've seen that observation a lot, the oldest expression of it I can find (with the key phrase "expectation of buying something") is from this union publication in July 2018:

A library is one of the last truly public spaces, where you can go to get out of the elements or meet with people without the expectation of buying something.

[0] https://www.afscme.org/blog/camden-county-library-workers-ra...

chrisco2554• 3 years ago

I go to state and national parks all the time. You don't really see vagrancy problems in the majority of them, but they all have park rangers whose job it is to police that. Many parks, of course, let you camp overnight up to two weeks at a time.

seabass-labrax• 3 years ago

Interesting you should say that, because as a British person I have never encountered a public park in which one is not allowed to be at night.

Public parks of course need some staff, but maybe they would be better if they didn't have them: the two gardeners for my local public park have been nicknamed 'Rack' and 'Ruin' due to their extreme approach to dead-heading..!

loeg7• 3 years ago

You can visit lots of commercial spaces without buying something as long as you're polite and not smelly.

mbrameld• 3 years ago

But the expectation that you will buy something is still there.

karmakaze• 3 years ago

I've found this to be true of many Starbucks locations. I usually do buy/drink a tea/coffee or two, but have never felt any pressure to keep buying. It might be an unwritten/unknown policy to allow this. I recall reading that Starbucks intentionally serves as a kind of 'third place'. Here's one[0] I just googled.

[0] https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2022/reimagining-the-t...

vel0city• 3 years ago

I can go and wander and look at the wares. But if I were to go to a Dick's Sporting Goods with some friends, plop down in an aisle, and start playing a board game they'll probably ask me to leave.

PJDK2• 3 years ago

I've seen this notion a few times, but I think it bares some scrutiny.

What places used to exist that no longer do where you can exist without the expectation of buying something?

Thinking about it, libraries are unusual in that they have no cost at all to enter. Top of my head only religious buildings seem to be similar in that regards.

There's quite a lot of options as far as no expectations to buy anything, but you need to pay some kind of fee - sport's centres, clubs that sort of thing. (One might argue they often contain a shop/cafe, but I'd argue you don't go there to use those, and they are very optional)

orange_joe2• 3 years ago

The societies of North America have totally abandoned the middle class and its ambitions. Instead of staying true to their goals of education, libraries have become daytime homeless shelters driving away their original patrons. So have busses, and trains. Schools have opted out of their obligations to provide the best educations to the public instead tailoring the education to the least capable. Ultimately this will lead to the further hollowing of our civil society as the middle class realizes the bureaucratic core does not have their best interests at heart. But Brutus is an honorable man.

klyrs8• 3 years ago

libraries have become daytime homeless shelters

My library looks nothing like this. You're painting all libraries with a broad brush, generalizing from a very small number of libraries in the downtown core of a handful of cities.

But yeah. Our view of homelessness as a personal failure of the homeless person, rather than a societal failure to care for its people, is not working. More punishment and less services only exacerbates the problem.

zmgsabst2• 3 years ago

Except that it’s cities which prioritize services that have this problem — eg, Seattle.

Solvency• 3 years ago

What? My town has three libraries alone, all of which are large, spacious, extremely clean, super quiet, full of great material, and are constantly full of well behaved citizens. You're not describing a feature of modern libraries. You're describing a local problem.

dangwhy7• 3 years ago

My town

i think GP is talking about big cities. My library ( heart of chicago) is def fits the description.

streetview : https://www.google.com/local/place/fid/0x880e2d00ee6fbd09:0x...

This is outside my libary from st view: https://imgur.com/a/CE51r2v

There is usually a huge congregation of homeless there by afternoon. And its even worse inside the library. You get hit with stench as soon as you open the library door. Sucks because libarians have exceptional knowledge that any book lover would enjoy talking to.

You're describing a local problem.

Unless you are suggesting middle class can only exist in the burbs and small towns.

I 've lived in pilsen chicago for over 25 yrs, this is my home. Hate to relocate in next few yrs because now i have newborn.

JohnFen5• 3 years ago

It's an incredibly common local problem that you find across a great deal of the US.

thebooktocome2• 3 years ago

Agreed. I live in a city with a noticeable homeless problem, but our extensive system of libraries is perfectly safe.

Now, ten or twenty years ago, the main branch downtown was in what certain conservative commentators might have called a "no-go zone"—but really the neighborhood around the library was fine. It seemed to me that the drug gangs in the area back then had some kind of unspoken agreement that the library was neutral (dare I say sacred?) ground.

AlanSE2• 3 years ago

What town is that? As I go through my life experiences, every affluent place I've lived in my state, NC, has had decent libraries. They are used mostly by kids and old people, anecdotally.

I laughed on the inside a bit when I considered the fact that a public library existed just a few blocks down from the library of a large public university. But this was my youthful ignorance. Anyone could walk in the university library and open a book (well, you could at that time, not so sure about anymore) but you had to have a school ID card to check out a book or access the computer system.

Before cell phones, I visited libraries traveling around the coast. The computers were 100% taken. There was a line to get one, and the librarian directed us to a scheduling system. These were people who needed to use a computer and the internet to apply to a job. Access was scarce, low-quality, and competency to use those tools were lacking.

Nowadays, cell phones have mostly taken away that niche of the past. I'm not sure if or why the people there still need the libraries.

YellOh• 3 years ago

I live in a smaller city / large town and the local libraries are pretty dangerous-feeling with lots of cops & homeless folks. My anecdata doesn't match yours; actual data may be more useful.

the_jesus_villa• 3 years ago

You live in a bubble. America also doesn't have a gun violence problem if you live in Montana. Lots of us don't live in Montana, unfortunately.

supertofu3• 3 years ago

This is only true in big cities. Definitely true in LA and NYC.

I was astounded to find that the small east-coast college town where I now live has a clean, bright, pleasant library that serves as a community educational space for all (not just the homeless or teenagers.) The bathrooms are usually spotless.

I wonder: how have massive cities like LA and NYC allowed their libraries defacto homeless shelters? It's a shame that public libraries in these cities are essentially unusable to the average taxpayer.

drewcoo3• 3 years ago

I wonder: how have massive cities like LA and NYC allowed their libraries defacto homeless shelters? It's a shame that public libraries in these cities are essentially unusable to the average taxpayer.

Somehow I doubt that all of the branch libraries of those systems are "homeless shelters." More likely the it's just the larger libraries near the actual shelters. Where "the average taxpayer" wouldn't spend time anyway.

JohnFen5• 3 years ago

the small east-coast college town where I now live has a clean, bright, pleasant library that serves as a community educational space for all

Small college towns have a couple of real advantages over big cities in this regard. First, they're small, which helps a lot. Second, they tend to have more funding available per-capita than large cities do.

platyp• 3 years ago

That has definitely not been my experience in NYC. I've lived in 3 neighborhoods in Queens, and all of them have had great local libraries that were clean and had friendly staff.

wombat-man• 3 years ago

It's just one of the few places where you can hang. Read, watch movies, and nobody is expecting you to spend money. It's air conditioned in the summer, heated in the winter.

Also in the burbs, it's not a trivial task for homeless to even get to a place like the library, where in NYC it's pretty easy to get around.

I still use the library in NYC, but I agree that some locations aren't exactly great places to spend the day studying, but it very much depends on the branch. "unusable" feels like a stretch. I can still pickup books and get help from librarians if I need it.

orange_joe2• 3 years ago

Not in my opinion, those smaller towns have largely (but not universally) abandoned the middle class ambition of home ownership through exclusionary land policy, despite not degrading their basic services.

waboremo• 3 years ago

How popular was your small east coast college library?

I have a theory about this. Which is that the upper/upper-mid class in particular cares more about the image of a pristine library than they do the actual effectiveness/reach of that library. This theory shows itself quite a lot through how people talk about libraries: not in how many students find what they're looking for, how happy librarians are, how many grades or careers have been improved. It's bathrooms and walls.

lotu2• 3 years ago

NYC libraries aren’t defacto shelters for the unhoused. When I visit them they have robust children’s sections and the adult section is filled with a cross section of the community, which does include people with a large bag who are just resting but also includes twenty something’s with designer closet hung and MacBooks.

drewcoo3• 3 years ago

Instead of staying true to their goals of education, libraries have become daytime homeless shelters driving away their original patrons.

Previously, there had been private libraries for the elite. Carnegie libraries, making public libraries widespread across the country, were known by uppity folks for attracting "undesirables." People of all races, genders, and social statuses were welcome there. Those were the original patrons. That was Carnegie's goal.

https://www.npr.org/2013/08/01/207272849/how-andrew-carnegie...

Schools have opted out of their obligations to provide the best educations to the public instead tailoring the education to the least capable

Our current school system was designed to create compliant factory workers. They're still making an uncreative, docile workforce, but where are the jobs?

https://qz.com/1314814/universal-education-was-first-promote...

lapcat4• 3 years ago

The societies of North America have totally abandoned the middle class and

They've totally abandoned the the middle class and the lower class. That's why we're having these problems. Pitting middle class against lower class allows the upper class to get away with sucking every last penny out of society and abandoning the greater good.

WalterBright19• 3 years ago

How does that reconcile with Washington State just passing a 7% tax on capital gains exceeding $250,000?

hnal943• 3 years ago

This is a really clear explanation that libraries have drifted from their original purpose and public funds could be better used elsewhere.

JohnFen5• 3 years ago

It seems to me that libraries would prefer not to deal with this stuff either. Much like how police are often dealing with things that aren't really police matters, the reason for this state is that we as a society have decided to largely abandon people in dire need.

Libraries (and police, and other services) are left to deal with this problem by default, because we as a society don't value finding solutions to the problem enough to bother to do that.

secstate3• 3 years ago

Is it possible that rather than abandoning people in dire need, we're now actually trying hard to help those in need instead of criminalizing bad luck and pretending they don't exist, but that that is exceedingly hard to do well?

jfengel• 3 years ago

The librarians I know are proud of the way the role of the library has expanded. They don't think of themselves as in charge of books. They think of themselves as in charge of using knowledge to help people.

They don't necessarily want to be in charge of providing other needs for the homeless. But their question is: where else are those homeless supposed to go? The library is the most visible public-facing aspect of the government. If they can leverage that to bring services to people, that's a good start.

The solution is not to ban the homeless from the libraries. The solution is to bring the rest of homeless services and support to the place where the homeless are.

Teever• 3 years ago

The librarians you know support this because they've been tricked by their managers and society into taking on a tremendous amount of dangerous and stressful work for free.

It isn't reasonable that we expect librarians to do this kind of work, and I would argue that there are elements of doing so that are outright illegal.

Mezzie3• 3 years ago

Also the ones who don't support this...leave.

It's one reason why I won't work in public libraries as someone with an MLIS.

zdragnar2• 3 years ago

This field draws on a lot of the same people who are drawn to social work. They know they're not going to make big money doing it, but they're going to get into it anyway because taking on the profession is a virtuous thing to do. There's a degree of willing self sacrifice, especially since (like other similar fields, such as museum curation) it practically takes someone dying for a position to open up.

Given all of this, these librarians aren't being tricked by anyone. It's just one more moral, virtuous thing to do for the community, despite not having the training or support to handle anything but the easy cases.

constantcrying• 3 years ago

The solution is to bring the rest of homeless services and support to the place where the homeless are.

No, it is not. The solution is to reduce homelessness, drug addicts and poverty. If needed create actual spaces for homeless people to go to, where there are actually people/resources which can help them.

Turning libraries into homeless shelters and librarians into social workers is an absurd policy idea.

WalterBright19• 3 years ago

an absurd policy idea.

The most unforgivably absurd policy idea is when the Seattle public schools got rid of calculus classes because of "equity".

at_a_remove3• 3 years ago

I worked in a library, though not as a librarian, for a long time. And I had worked in one as a high school student.

I no longer support libraries as they stand. Most of their current issues are self-inflicted. I will now lay out why. The Internet came along, and Google of course. (You remember when Google seemed to have the correct answer to everything, in the past) And then the scanning of books, and the librarians panicked. They had an identity crisis: What good is a library in the age of Google?

This contagious panic spread and the usual questions came about. "What will we be, then?" And they immediately started trying to be everything to everyone. In a university setting, that means that various small groups will immediately come looking. Maybe the library can help us! And so the library begins to do things outside of its original scope, further and further. We begin housing various student groups, despite not having enough space for books. Checking the logs of the prayer room and the breastfeeding room was a little bitter, but we still need that ... but we have too many books. Named faculty carrels, we keep those, but we have too many books. Bathrooms we have, but that one woman just likes to empty her bladder in the elevator. Librarians, in their helpfulness but lack of identity, have become janitors and people who help you fill out your tax forms and security guards who have to keep an eye out for that guy who likes to jerk off on Level A, in the back.

I received a survey from my library a couple of years ago. Multiple choice: "Are our libraries A) doing enough to help LGBTQ people? B) not doing enough?" Note the lack of the third option, maybe you're focusing on them too much because WHERE ARE THE BOOKS? My local "civilian" library doesn't seem to have anything to lend that isn't recent any longer. It's Redbox for books. The shelves are fewer, the shelves are shorter, the shelves have been shoved back for "community spaces." The local loan system is garbage, the statewide system is getting thinner and thinner, and inter-library loan beyond that, well, it used to be great, but they're shoveling out books (and I'm not talking about that thirty-ninth copy of Twilight which was once in hot demand but isn't any longer) that were once in most branches I visited.

Many academic libraries are playing a game of Hearts. There's only two ways to win Hearts. The first involves getting rid of your Hearts before the other players do, paring down books. The other involves trying to collect all the hearts, which makes you the hub of an interlibrary loan system that externalizes the cost of having and housing books, which is not insignificant. Before she retired, a librarian passed on to me a shocking paper describing the cost per year of the average book just to exist on a shelf. Most people don't think about that.

No, I don't think a middle ground is what is called for. Get back to books, by which I mean, the acquisition and organization of information such that the depth of it can be accessed by those in need of it, perhaps more so than they really understand, not just the first thing that Google (or ChatGPT) vomits out.

nerdo• 3 years ago

I received a survey from my library a couple of years ago. Multiple choice: "Are our libraries A) doing enough to help LGBTQ people? B) not doing enough?"

Same at my local library, singular focus on LGBT kids content and activism with all budgets entirely allocated to it. Would make sense to rebrand as state-run LGBTQ bookstores, more glam for the librarians than homeless shelters perhaps?

hobotime• 3 years ago

Our King County library spends about $250 per household, and the average family borrows three books. Honestly, given their cost per book, they should just buy books people want and close down.

friend_and_foe2• 3 years ago

While I agree with you, I think those librarians with an identity crisis were right: they need to justify their existence in an age where they aren't needed. I do believe that if a library tries to just be a library it will not last for much longer.

Which is OK. We honestly don't need libraries for what they are anymore. The reason is in the medium. When we want a book (or a CD or DVD or VHS tape or whatever) we don't want the physical object, we want the information inside. We no longer physically need the object to get at the information, we no longer need a central repository to store these objects for our convenience. Libraries have no reason to exist anymore.

The true libraries of today are maligned, banned, hated, called criminals. They are libgen, scipub and torrent trackers. They're done often for no profit, just for the sake of an ideological motivation to make information available. The medium has changed but people's desire for the information is still there. There are people out there keeping up the fight, but the ones trying to maintain a quite room full of shelves just refuse to see where the fight is going and are being left behind.

at_a_remove3• 3 years ago

They really are needed, which is the ironic part. Subject librarians are the people you want because they know what book you need before you need it, they know what sources of information are outdated, they know how to organize and get at that information, in depth. People who "just Google" something lack that depth of understanding, they end up picking the wrong books to look in, and so on.

You are right that the people want the information inside, but you're missing the part where the subject librarian puts people in touch with the container that the user really wants (every user their book), even if they aren't stating it well to a search engine. And we both know how poorly people phrase things to search engines, or how a novice to the field simply does not know the correct terminology of the field (the jargon) to put in.

WalterBright19• 3 years ago

the cost per year of the average book just to exist on a shelf

Of course, that cost will go up the fewer books there are. In my local library, it's a magnificent, 2 story tall building with only one story. The bookshelves are widely spaced, and not very tall. The shelves only are in one part of the floor space.

n8cpdx• 3 years ago

Animats2• 3 years ago

"In the late 1970s, “homelessness” as we know it today didn’t really exist; the issue only emerged as a serious social problem in the 1980s."

This is worth remembering.

david2ndaccount• 3 years ago

Vagrancy used to be a crime.

AlanSE2• 3 years ago

I honestly, genuinely, fail to understand the meaning of that. It can't possibly be true that homeless people didn't exist before the 1980s. What does this actually mean?

loeg7• 3 years ago

Possibly a reference to deinstitutionalization in the 1970s.

PKop4• 3 years ago

Crimes and harassment were punished, not put up with and subsidized.

treis• 3 years ago

The mentally ill were confined to institutions.

The more functioning homeless put enough scratch together to get a place at a flophouse.

I think it's also policing. There was a time that a bum who got caught in the wrong place got the crap kicked out of them by the cops. Obviously problematic for so many reasons but violence does have its way of modifying behavior.

Also drugs. Just way easier to get and more powerful than before. Back then it was mostly alcohol. While that takes a terrible toll on one's body most alcoholics are functional to a reasonable extent. Not so much for crack or heroin or meth addicts.

Animats2• 3 years ago

First, there were more big housing projects [1], and more welfare. Those created their own problems - third generation welfare moms, gangs, etc.

Second, more crazies were institutionalized. Santa Clara County used to have "The Great Asylum for the Insane.", opened in 1885. This was a huge complex of buildings in a rural setting. The place was later renamed to Agnews State Mental Hospital, later Agnews Developmental Center.[2] Beginning in 1972 this was gradually shut down. The last patient was kicked out in 1998. The remaining buildings are now owned by Oracle, and you can go look at some of them if you want.

Third, vagrancy used to be be illegal. Cops arrested people for it, and they were sorted out into "too lazy to work", "unable to work", or "crazy". This peaked during the Great Depression, when the Works Progress Administration was created to give unemployed people jobs.[3] At peak, the Federal government employed 3 million people, mostly doing construction work. There was some really nice construction. Rincon Annex, the old post office in San Francisco, is one of the finer local examples.

As the demand for unskilled labor declined, finding some place to send the "too lazy to work" people became difficult.

Fourth, drugs. There are too many burned-out people who aren't coming back.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Taylor_Homes

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnews_Developmental_Center

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration

lapcat4• 3 years ago

One thing to keep in mind is that the article is about Canada, not the United States.

1970-01-01• 3 years ago

Twas always a problem. The Great Depression is worth remembering.

https://www.thoughtco.com/hoovervilles-homeless-camps-of-the...

loeg7• 3 years ago

The concept of Hoovervilles / shantytowns predates the 1970s.

mixmastamyk2• 3 years ago

Post WWII was a time of plenty and work to go around.

RobotToaster• 3 years ago

the issue only emerged as a serious social problem in the 1980s.

Purely a coincidence that was the same era Reagan was president.

lapcat4• 3 years ago

The article is about Canada, in a Canadian magazine.

BashiBazouk• 3 years ago

In Canada, maybe. Santa Cruz, California on the other hand had plenty of homelessness all through the 70's...

secstate3• 3 years ago

Not to be a totally wet blanket, but I often hear a lot of "it didn't used to be like this" or "the purpose of libraries" thrown out in discussions like this.

Carnegie's vast wealth single-handedly forced the idea of libraries that weren't just for rich university students, privileged religious orders or the mind-bendingly affluent. He loved books and wanted to share them, which is very noble. But he also had no room for slackers. To quote wikipedia, quoting, Carnegie:

Carnegie believed in giving to the "industrious and ambitious; not those who need everything done for them, but those who, being most anxious and able to help themselves, deserve and will be benefited by help from others."

This vision of the public library as public welfare's physical manifestation is a modern invention that is not anchored in history. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be. My partner was a librarian for a long time and loved helping those in need. But let's make sure we're accurately remembering the past, not designing a convenient past to justify the budgets to do the work we see we need done in the present.

chkaloon• 3 years ago

Not sure libraries wanted that role foisted on them. Sounds like they became the default because they were open access, and society gave up on things like mental institutions (yes, there were abuses, but imo we went too far and threw the baby out with the bath water) and aren't dealing with the issues effectively. Libraries are dealing with them because they are all there is.

lapcat4• 3 years ago

This vision of the public library as public welfare's physical manifestation is a modern invention that is not anchored in history.

It didn't need to be. It wasn't like they were turning away the homeless with library door security guards back then. It simply wasn't a problem. From the article: "In every public place, the evidence of a social welfare system that has been chipped away at for decades is on display." The library has become a last resort, by default.

The solution is "doing things that are much more difficult: building more social housing, hiring more social workers, investing in mental health workers, schools, community centres, and everything else needed to address problems before they reach the library’s doors"

WalterBright19• 3 years ago

When I came to Seattle in 1979, the only homeless I ever saw was maybe a wino in Pioneer Square. That's it.

The poop on the street started maybe 15 years ago, along with the tent cities and the "ranching" of RVs.

robotresearcher• 3 years ago

Carnegie's vast wealth single-handedly forced the idea of libraries that weren't just for rich university students, privileged religious orders or the mind-bendingly affluent.

The UK Public Libraries Act is from 1850. Boston Public Library was 1854. The first Carnegie library was opened in 1883, a whole generation later.

Turing_Machine• 3 years ago

A library in Boston, Massachusetts is not remotely the same as a library in Talladega, Alabama.

ThalesX• 3 years ago

I go to the National Library of my backwards little country; some 2 - 3 times per week, when I know I won't have a lot of meetings and I want to focus on work. I go there, in the silence, find a nice place to sit down, plug my laptop, connect to the wifi and start up the IDE. I don't need to buy anything, I don't need to talk to anyone, it's chill in the summer and just a bit too chilly in the winter. It costs me $5 / year (parking space included...) and if I'm lucky I get a seat with an amazing view. Going to and from there on foot is also a bit of exercise.

Before discovering this hidden marvel, which is actually a huge building, I never liked the loudness of working in a cafe until one day when it hit me, why not try the library. Haven't looked back since.

richjdsmith• 3 years ago

My local small-town library has become a pseudo homeless shelter. It’s exactly as this article describes. Often I’ll go in and there will be a local homeless person muttering in the corner.

That has certainly dissuaded me from going regularly.

oh_sigh• 3 years ago

Same here - well, small city library (Boulder, CO).

Late last year we even had to shut down our library for multiple weeks, because methamphetamine was detected during testing, because people were smoking it in the library.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/04/us/boulder-colorado-meth-...

dhuk_2018• 3 years ago

Don't worry, we're opening another pseudo day shelter in NoBo!

Mezzie3• 3 years ago

It's also the main reason I have no interest in working in public libraries at the moment. I studied to help manage information, not babysit or be a social worker.

squeaky-clean• 3 years ago

I couldn't even tell you the quality of my local library because they are only open from 10am-5pm and aren't open on Sundays. Those hours are fine for students, but how is anyone with a job supposed to be able to visit?

kccqzy• 3 years ago

Same here. I end up only going to the library to pick up books I requested to borrow online and to return books. It's rare if I actually stay in the library to read.

wolpoli• 3 years ago

I am not sure the reason for these articles talking evolving the library and providing homeless services and supports.

There are already resource centers with services and supports that homeless need, which may duplicate what libraries already offer, eg. computers. They are staffed with people from their community as well.

bombcar• 3 years ago

The libraries are taken advantage of because they don’t enforce the same standards that homeless service centers do, often because of unfamiliarity. Sadly, they eventually learn what to do.

ghuntley• 3 years ago

I work from libraries all the time. Love them.

jemmyw• 3 years ago

I visit the library quite often. My kids love going. If I'm waiting for something, like my car being serviced so I can't get home, then the library is the best place for doing some quiet work.

charlie0• 3 years ago

Soon we'll need to have a police officer stationed at libraries, just like at some schools.

ranger207• 3 years ago

Last time I went to the library I had to go through a metal detector. Then they had only one floor of books out of 5. Going to try another branch but I wasn't particularly happy

robotburrito• 3 years ago

I often see the police at my local library here in SF. They now have a large security guard there full time. More often than not the library is reasonably calm, but I would say once a week we have someone screaming and freaking out. Overall though, I love the library and go a few days a week when I need to get out of my apartment to get some work done.

If libraries did not exist already, I couldn't even imagine them being funded now a days. A free place!? Where people can read books for free!?!?!?

kotaKat• 3 years ago

No, because my local library is only open during the week.

It's closed on the weekends, and during the week it's 9:30 to 5 PM, with the exception of 11:30 to 7 PM on Wednesdays.

My library literally doesn't have funding and the city nor its taxpayers care enough to help.

activiation• 3 years ago

Yes, for a passport application

etempleton• 3 years ago

We really do not have a solution to mental health issues and homelessness in the US. We determined asylums were cruel and inhumane, but our alternative is nothing.

afpx• 3 years ago

It's a tough battle. If you only consider the wealthiest countries, homelessness strongly correlates with nominal GDP. But, reducing GDP would probably create more homelessness.

throwaway1737382• 3 years ago

The whole deinstitutionalization thing was supposed to come with community mental health centers funded by the government. But when Reagan took office after Carter this was one of the first things on the chopping block. This left us in the situation we have today of lots of really ill people ending up in jail or on the streets. But I’m sure someone saved some taxes somewhere.

Have you been to the library lately?

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