Local Library Would Like to Remind Everyone Its Shit Is Free

https://medium.com/comedy-corner/3c369fb7d704

by mjhea0 • 13 years ago

30 30 13 years ago

nextweek2• 13 years ago

Like book shops libraries need to move with the times. Adding a DVD section isn't it. That just makes them like blockbusters.

They should be local archives of local things, with content online. Plus free Internet terminals and wifi.

banachtarski2• 13 years ago

No offense, but you've got it all wrong.

Many libraries already are those things (local archive, online content, free internet terminals, wifi). As a person who made it through college by leveraging the library because I couldn't afford many books, I think libraries and bookstores both serve an important function. The local library in my town is also a meeting ground for many kids after school. As a kid, I read hundreds of books, multiple per week. Dahl, Dickens, Wells, Chrichton, King, Twain, Defoe, Card, Dumas, Prachett, Eddings, and heaps more. How could I have done this without a library? How can any kid these days get that much reading without a library (apart from their parents splurging on a kindle).

Incidentally, adding a DVD section doesn't make them "like blockbusters." Blockbusters failed because it was a corporate entity that needed to generate revenues to succeed. Libraries are trying to maximize social value, not profit. I learned grammar when my foreign parents borrowed a VHS from the library as a kid to show me at home. And multiplication. I would want my kids to watch certain classics on DVD too. Lord of the Rings. The Prestige. 12 Angry Men. The Godfather.

You clearly don't use or have a need for the library. But don't criticize what you don't know.

ams6110• 13 years ago

They need to do more than that. Local libraries of physical media are dead. They need to close up and take their significant tax burden off of their citizenry.

Pre-internet, I used to use the library quite often. I probably haven't been inside one in 10 years now. Their time is past, they need to die.

mjhea02• 13 years ago

How about people that do not know how to effectually search the internet to get the social, economic, and political information to make informed decisions in their lives?

banachtarski2• 13 years ago

You don't read books I take it? Or perhaps you read on a very slow cadence? You should visit one sometime in the evening. You might be surprised how crowded it gets.

mjhea02• 13 years ago

http://www.ala.org/news/state-americas-libraries-report-2013...

faddotio• 13 years ago

Because link aggregators and blogspam will fill the gaping maw of content?

tekalon• 13 years ago

I compared my Amazon wish list (about a thousand books) to what was available in my local library. Just based on the few hundred at my library, I can potentially save a few thousand dollars. I have already saved a hundred or so just in the last few months after doing so. That makes it well worth my tax dollars going to my library system. The library has both physical books but ebooks, audio books, streaming video and of course the community services/classes.

mindslight• 13 years ago

I too would love for most functions of the government to pack up and close their doors.

However, the problem with espousing this solution for every individual subject is that the amount of success is highly correlated to how much it means cutting public services (the purported reason for taxes) versus actually defunding the bureaucracy. Libraries and road maintenance are easily gutted while city administration and police push back hard to keep their pockets lined.

So you're still being extorted for a similar amount but receiving much less in return. Eventually, people cry uncle and vote for higher taxes to bring back services and the cycle repeats. And this is at the local level where there's some sliver of accountability, possibility of moving, and taxes are relatively low! So let's just save the discussion of whether libraries are a worthwhile public service until that military-surveillance cancer is well in remission.

RogerL2• 13 years ago

I don't think restricting access to information to the wealthier population will result in a society you want to live in (I may be wrong, and I am straying close to politics, so I will leave it there).

As others have noted, libraries are bustling. Tons of people that cannot afford their own internet/computer, study groups, people that don't know how to search for information at the reference desk, free classes on computer use, resume writing, job seeking, after hour programs for school kids, study groups, SAT prep, story hour, readings from local authors, sometimes film, book reading groups, it goes on and on.

I tend to avail myself of their electronic catalog more than the physical catalog, though there are just countless books which are not electronic yet. And, they are great for more ephemeral needs. Grab a couple travel books for you next vacation, for example, or a book on home wiring when you need to do a one time repair.

Libraries are one of the few ways our Government really invests in knowledge beyond school age, and I for one would miss it terribly, as would a huge number of people in my community, given how full it always is and how hard it is to find a table, or how long the wait list is for a book I want to read.

logn• 13 years ago

“The founding of libraries was like constructing more public granaries, amassing reserves against a spiritual winter which by certain signs, in spite of myself, I see ahead…”

- Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/680896-the-founding-of-libra...

6d0debc0712• 13 years ago

What sort of local things?

tingletech• 13 years ago

http://dp.la/

JoeAltmaier• 13 years ago

Our library sold off its local history books, its local author collections etc. It keeps only popular stuff that gets checked out a lot.

They have a point, have the stuff that people want; its just that I don't read that stuff so there's nothing in it for me. Kind of like a grocery store that sells only nachos and coke.

6d0debc0712• 13 years ago

Honestly, as more media is created the worth of curated collections increases faster than the worth of the media itself. If I were in charge of libraries, I'd be looking into that aspect of things. Because, right now, I walk into libraries and they're just mediocre collections of books I've no interest in.

1123581321• 13 years ago

Libraries do curate their collections, but they serve a lot of different people and they more closely accomplish their mission by having the books 10 different kinds of people want than by having just the books one person wants.

If they seem to be falling behind on book replacement or addition, it's probably for financial reasons. If they are woefully out of date or off base in a particular section (computer science is common, sadly), then they could probably use your expertise. I help pick finance books for one library.

However, public libraries ultimately expect people with particular and/or extensive interests to be able to search the catalog and order books through inter library loan.

Create• 13 years ago

http://www.propublica.org/article/remember-when-the-patriot-...

jupiterjaz2• 13 years ago

Local library business hours are terrible.

adestefan• 13 years ago

Here they're 10A - 9P M-Th, 10A - 6P FSa, and 12P - 5P Sunday.

Pretty respectable hours if you ask me.

jupiterjaz2• 13 years ago

Here in downtown Reno they're 9am-5pm Mon-Thur and 10-5 on Sunday. That's basically post office style hours (ie when everyone's at work or in school) with the added bonus of being closed Friday and Saturday. That's pretty awful.

http://www.washoecounty.us/library/libraries.html

RogerL2• 13 years ago

Ours are closed Sunday and Monday, close at 6 on fri/sat, and open at 1pm on Tue. For me it's pretty hard to get to the library sometimes, but I suspect the hours work well for the people that need in-library time the most (school children, retired, and out of work). I'd prefer to pay the taxes for additional access, though. Nothing better than spending a rainy Sunday afternoon in the library (not that we hardly ever have one here in CA)

tnuc• 13 years ago

My local library has a lot of books available that I can just download and read on my Kindle.

Don't want to pay $9 for a kindle book you will read once, get it from the library in 5 minutes for free. All you need is a library card.

eigenvector• 13 years ago

I live in Toronto, where the public library system has the highest circulation-per-capita in the North America, and even here we pay about $5.50 (in taxes) for each book borrowed from the library. Yes, it is free at the point of use, but libraries are not cheap to operate.

bane2• 13 years ago

I'm not sure cost/book loaned is the best measure of a library's performance.

In my local area (a suburb of Washington D.C.), I have 2 brand new libraries about 5-10 minutes from my house, with another one planned within walking distance. At both the extant libraries, book loaning is just part of the services offered by the library.

For example, on any given day you can go in after school and the libraries will be packed to the gills with students using them as after school study centers -- with private group study rooms and the like. Private tutors often meet with their students in the library as well instead of people's houses as it lets them have a centralized place where they can see 3 or 4 students in a row with high efficiency.

They also offer a pretty full schedule of community events, for example one of my county libraries has regular meet-ups for parents of autistic kids. The kids get together and play videogames and the parents meet with a special educator.

I've also attended talks by authors of niche books that would never get a chance in a major book chain. One of the best I recall was a talk by a retired player about his days as a professional baseball player in the Negro Leagues.

Libraries are more than just a cheap alternative to a book store, they're major community centers dedicated to learning in general.

I'd happily pay $10 a book loaned to keep them around.

freehunter• 13 years ago

I joined my local library branch to try out renting ebooks on my Kindle, and ran into a very curious concern. All of the books I wanted to read were out of stock. Yes, the ebooks were out of stock. I understand that there is licensing that needs to happen on the side of the library, but seriously publishers, it's 2013 and these are ebooks. Get over yourself. This is the exact argument people make when they say piracy is not stealing. It doesn't cost a damn thing to make another ebook.

bane2• 13 years ago

I grew up in a poor rural county with a smattering of libraries. The local branch was a small single room building with maybe 1500-2000 books, but I practically lived there. On occasion I'd visit the central library and just walk among the aisles looking at all of the amazing books. I'd easily spend 7 or 8 hours there, skipping meals.

After the Internet, I (like many people) kind of stopped going, I was spending less time reading for pleasure and more time studying and web surfing. Libraries really struggled during this time finding a purpose. But there's been a definite resurgence in the last few years and I, and it seems many others, really enjoy spending time in libraries. Quite often, when I'm on a work-from-home day, I'll just spend the day working out of the local library. It's quiet, I can focus, the WiFi is decent for what I need to do.

I definitely take them for granted -- considering them as essential for civilization as indoor plumbing. One of the things that has surprised me as I've traveled around the world is how rare public free libraries are and in a sense how at risk this puts the local public library. "If <country> doesn't need public libraries why should <insert US state>?" is something I've heard from time to time.

My wife grew up in a country without free public libraries. They had specialized "study libraries" you pay a monthly fee to go to, or "book loan" libraries where you check out a stack of comic books in a series and return them when you're done, but again you pay for this service. I don't think she has quite the appreciation I do for the public library system, but on occasion I can get her to go to one for isolated work and she's checked out and read a handful of books.

Interestingly, in her home country the government, in search of global cachet, has started building vast public city libraries, a bit like the New York public Library. But they haven't yet turned this into a full-fledged library system like here in the US. It's still a significant travel expense from many places to get to one of the few free public libraries there.

But imagine the social and economic implications if kids did their after school studies at the local free library branch then at an expensive and often poorly run (and sometimes illegal) "study libraries" that almost every Korean kid goes to.

bradleysmith• 13 years ago

It took me looking for the described video for me to realize this was The Onion.

I really wanted to see the president of a library board say they had a 'shit ton' of books.

Legion• 13 years ago

How long will it be before ereaders are so cheap and disposable that libraries loan them out instead of physical books? Have to think it's not that far off, at least before it starts happening here and there.

eurleif• 13 years ago

This already happens at the library in the town I grew up in: http://brookslibraryvt.org/borrow/digital-media

Local Library Would Like to Remind Everyone Its Shit Is Free

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