>>> "Wouldn’t it be great if you could pay $9.99 a month and read all of the books you want?"
I sincerely hope nothing "disrupts" public libraries in my lifetime. As a California resident, I can walk into ANY public library in the state and get a free library card with access to physical books, audiobooks, ebooks. Some branches have laptops, hotspots, tablets, e-readers available to borrow. My local branch even has a Makerspace with 3D printers, laser cutters, sewing machines, and other misc tools.
They are. Every single public resource is seen as a potential market opportunity being squandered away, or as competition other players do not want to see in play.
Well a library is a place where a population can spend the day getting smarter while not spending money.
If you're rich, powerful and an unethical asshole those are two things you definitely do not want.
Sadly many people seem to think they are really showing the folks up there by retreating from any form of self-education once they are out of school. The opposite couldn't be more true.
The criticisms were telling though, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and many others claimed he had a rich mans agenda, seeking fame rather than improvement, paying for buildings and not books, maintaining segregation rather than open access, paying for bricks was "cheaper" than paying taxes, etc.
Not undercutting the role of libraries, just pointing out that philanthropy from the wealthy can be a mixed bag of indirect control and agenda pushing at times, wrapped up in tidy looking tax avoidance multi layered "charity" arrangements.
It's always fair to criticize, but it's also very plausible that Carnegie paid for buildings instead of books so that his charity would improve things for the longer term.
Also, as long as the outcomes are good, I personally don't care one iota whether a person is doing them for the wrong reasons.
Then he isn't rich, powerful and an unethical asshole.
People can be rich and try to do the right thing even if there seems to be no direct economic incentive to do so — and I applaud them if they do realize that money alone doesn't create a meaningful life. Yet I don't need to wonder whether a normal tax rate on billionaires would do even more for the libraries.
> Yet I don't need to wonder whether a normal tax rate on billionaires would do even more for the libraries.
I agree that tax rates should be higher, but I have absolutely no faith that politicians will do a better job stewarding money toward good causes than a billionaire who cares about them (and/or wants to brag about their philanthropy for clout)
Reducing waste is a great option! I'm not of the opinion that raising taxes is some objectively correct solution or anything, my personal viewpoint is just that taxing more across the board to invest in infrastructure and long-term economic strengths is the way to go.
>If you're rich, powerful and an unethical asshole those are two things you definitely do not want.
This smells like a half-baked conspiracy theory. It's not like the overwhelming majority of people want to get smarter in their free time. I'm not sure how it is in the rest of the world, but in American and all (individual) European cultures, most people don't pursue self-education. I would not be surprised if this applies to most other cultures as well
You might say that's how a lot of people on this website got their knowledge, but this website is statistically insignificant compared to the world population. Plus, it's not like every single member here pursues self-education. I'm willing to wager most people come on here just to be entertained
I didn't say rich, powerful and unethical people actively need to work against public libraries. They just don't need to support them, which is enough, given the fact that they often land in or near places of political power.
Just don't increase the funding while inflation increases and you're basically cutting funding. And then when things eventually start to look like shit tear them down. And these are not even things a rich, powerful and unethical person needs to do willingly or on purpose. It is just a thing that happens, because it isn't high on the priority list. And it isn't high on the priority list because it doesn't make them direct money.
Now if you're a politician that profits from your constituents being not too critical why should you actively support a thing that has the potential to make them more critical? Not that you actively have to be against it, it just isn't that high on your list of priorities..
This is how incentives work. And while there are people who will support measures which won't directly profit them short term, it seems to me they are an endangered species, at least in the US.
Public libraries are largely funded/supported locally. In my town, that mostly means out of a vote at town meeting, volunteer organizations, and an annual book sale. There is occasionally local political drama but it's mostly around people who earn some nominal salary that wouldn't persuade a lot of people on this site to get out of bed in the morning.
> I'm willing to wager most people come on here just to be entertained
To add to the conspiracy, endless entertainment is another way that the rich and powerful want to keep the population complacent. Add some unsubtle propaganda about how great and diverse the US is, too.
That said, the propaganda isn't as straightforward as it used to be, and foreign propaganda is sprinkled in as well with e.g. China funding and adding their section to big blockbuster films.
>It's not surprising that this push comes amid the understanding that the less educated one is, the more likely they are to vote R [2].
I saw the article, and it does indeed show this, however, I'm not sold that education is the only criterion when it comes to how someone votes... or does anything else, for that matter
It's far too simple of a cause-and-effect type of deal for this to be the only factor, or even, for this to be a factor at all, perhaps. The world is a bit more complex than chucking everything up to how someone does something based solely on their administered level of institutional education
I've been just a tiny bit more skeptical of all of these cause-and-effect type stories ever since I read Nassim Taleb
> however, I'm not sold that education is the only criterion when it comes to how someone votes... or does anything else, for that matter
It isn't, however if your education or world view is superficial, you're more susceptible to right-wing talking points, like a broad spectrum "fear of ones that are different to you". But when you're more educated, more worldly, less blinkered you won't be as afraid of the other and less susceptible to a politician that They are after your jobs and benefits, and more aware that the politicians and rich people are trying to keep you down for their own gains.
Sure, and superficially what you're saying does make sense... except that it's using deductive reasoning. There are plenty of cases where people with academic credentials vote for the same people you say dumb people do. Dumb people, of course, are people who have no academic credentials, because they're only for very smart people
I recommend giving Who Voted for Hitler? by Richard F. Hamilton a read. The world is infinitely much more complex than our story-making minds would have us believe
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. You speak the truth.
We're experiencing this very same thing now in Alabama. Or one could simply look at Florida. Things aren't getting better here. The current GOP leadership is trying their best to be as regressive as possible.
I feel like I am doing my son an incredible disservice by raising him in Alabama, but my wife refuses to leave while her mother is still living here.
Show him some alternatives. I grew up in a backward place too.
The single most valuable thing I learned is what is really possible to do. I got to see that because I ended up helping people of means who took me aside and showed me a look outside the place I was living.
For many, and this is true of my peer group, just knowing what is possible really mattered.
Of course I left town, found work and married someone I thought highly of and got to work building a better life.
I plan on showing him alternatives so he doesn't have to learn about them they way that I did.
I moved out of my mother's home when I was 16 and I managed to graduate high school. But I left town two days after graduation and I've only been back three times in 24 years.
Had I not left Alabama, and the US, I would have likely ended up just as bigoted and close minded as most of my family. The ten years I spent outside of the US allowed me to learn a completely different perspective and finally made me realize that my mother and my other family were wrong about so many things.
My boy just turned five a few weeks ago and he's already travelled more than I did by the time I turned 21.
Mind sharing where you moved and how that prevented you from going to the road, from as you say: "just as bigoted and close minded as most of my family.", to whatever you became afterward? Do you think had you moved to another place in the US, a similar change would not have occurred, or did it have to be outside the US?
I moved to the Caribbean for 10 years. Then on to SF and later PDX. I also spent about 6 months in both NYC and Chicago in between SF and PDX. Living in the Caribbean introduced me to so many different cultures.
I ran a bar before I became a carpenter. My neighbors around my bar included people from India, Senegal, all over Europe, and Japan. I become close friends with a much older couple from Senegal and also an Indian family. They welcomed me into their homes and fed me and taught me about their music and food and such.
I likely would not have had those experiences if I remained on the mainland.
"Education", as you have used it, is a measure of collegiate accomplishment, not of merited learned-ness.
It correlates more with socio-economic class.
The same argument can easily be made about Democrats and their inability to repair trivial household items, or empathize with those outside of their privileged groups.
You just pick a characteristic and then label it "good" measure of [x]. Ironically the same thought process is too blame for "telling too many people to goto college"
The lack of self-agency, accountability, and ability to empathize on the left is astounding.
While there are a few fringe pockets where GOP influence isn't helping anyone, by and large, the "conspiracy theorists" and MAGA folks are attacking major news outlets, scientific journals, etc. strictly because they have been corrupted and influenced by highly partisan partnerships from the left, to bend narratives or outright lie about controversial issues and current events in their favor.
When citizen journalists on X (and other places) are putting corporate media to shame because they're willing to faithfully report what the corporates aren't, that's a clear sign there's something amiss. Breaking free of this one-sided media conglomerate is essential for critical thinking, because journalists have no place in thinking for people, which is unfortunately true on all sides, in practice.
Worse, corporate media sources use their powerful positions not just as a beacon of authority, but as a way to enforce false narratives through their close partnerships with their preferred political partners, who are working to manipulate those narratives in their favor for political gain, like winning elections at nearly any cost. Additionally, shaming and declaring citizen & independent journalists as "misinformants" for questioning mainstream narratives that have been identified as patently false/twisted, either by lying or by omission, evidenced by whistleblowers calling out these issues in interviews with independent sources, knowing their stories won't be edited for political purposes.
Similarly on X, now that it isn't captured by a political side that openly believes censorship is acceptable to elevate their own preferred narratives, information can flow freely and users on X can think for themselves (scary, I know... imagine if YOU could think freely and post your own convictions! How will humanity survive?). Since the previous "community guidelines" enforcers at Twitter have been fired, faithful counter-reporting is no longer being policed (the "now" true Hunter Biden report comes to mind conveniently after the 2020 election was over). Now Conservatives can have an equal and prominent voice there, given that Twitter/X has always been a premier source of real-time news and reporting.
If something cannot be questioned, speculating on the motives around it is essential. The 20th century saw too many tyrants dictating the flow of information for us to conveniently forget its devastating impacts on their respective societies. Not a single politician, media outlet, scientist, or "expert" is above being questioned, for any reason whatsoever. It is the only path to healthy, inclusive dialogue.
Ah yes, just last week me and my fellow billionaires at our secret biannual conference in Geneva were discussing how we can prevent people from reading books at the library. See, people reading is a threat to our power, one which we take very seriously. It is not going to be easy, especially seeing how many of us have donated millions of dollars to libraries and a few even have wings of libraries named after us, but the threat is too severe now, drastic measures must be taken.
Now seeing how people are on to our plot, the urgency is clear. I am proposing that over the next few decades we work secretly behind the scenes to gradually reduce funding for various local libraries which have seen visitors decline since the rise of the Internet.
> Well a library is a place where a population can spend the day getting smarter while not spending money.
If you're rich, powerful and an unethical asshole those are two things you definitely do not want.
This is conspiracy level thinking. Nobody wealthy is sitting around scheming how to keep the proles dumb and subdued.
The assault on public institutions like libraries comes from 2 places:
1) Stop wasting my tax dollars on stuff I don't use or care about.
Or
2) I bet there is an untapped commercial market that can be built, and people will love my solution more than public libraries.
> > [Rich & powerful assholes often maintain their status by unethical means.]
> This is conspiracy level thinking.
The prevalence of assholes is a documented thing (latest numbers I've heard was over 6% of clinical narcissists, reportedly a very conservative lower bound), and who would ever be surprised that high-status people like being high-status?
I don't know about libraries specifically, but the idea that rich assholes would like to keep the education level of the general population below a threatening threshold is not conspiracy thinking to me, it's just obvious.
I am of course not denying the existence of nice rich people. Though I'm afraid they tend to be selected out of ludicrous wealth. In fact, I fully expect to find many more assholes among super-rich people than I would among the general population. (But I'm not sure either: the strife we find among some of the poorest people also tend to generate assholes…)
I think "that" = "the idea that rich assholes would like to keep the education level of the general population below a threatening threshold is not conspiracy thinking to me, it's just obvious."
>Though I'm afraid they tend to be selected out of ludicrous wealth.
The irony is that one of the most ludicrously wealthy people in history was also probably the single largest contributor to public libraries. Whether or not he was simply an outlier, I think that’s an important thing to point out.
Further, some data suggests that as much as 5% of the general population are narcissists. So collectively, your point seems to be that rich people are pretty much like the rest of us, just with more money.
I said "tend to". A tendency does not make an absolute and complete genocide. I also said "I'm afraid", which is supposed to convey some level of uncertainty. Carnegie's donation doesn't invalidate my point, even if he wasn't an outlier.
> The irony is that one of the most ludicrously wealthy people in history was also probably the single largest contributor to public libraries.
Where you see irony, I see expected statistics: the largest contributor to pretty much anything has to be ludicrously rich. Because the only way to give that much, is to own even more.
And I will add that one incentive for rich people to donate is their public image. And in many cases their "donations" are largely neutered by tax cuts or by increasing the return on some of their other investments (basically their donations causing other of their investments to increase their returns). Donations by rich people aren't always genuinely generous.
What evidence would it take to change your mind? Because it seems like you'll rationalize any outcome to fit your mental model.
If the wealthy don't fund something, it's because they're narcissists. If they do, it's because of statistics. At the same time, you ignore the statistics about narcissism.
> If the wealthy don't fund something, it's because they're narcissists. If they do, it's because of statistics.
I said no such strawman, and it's not my main point anyway.
My main point is: the idea that rich & powerful people will generally do what it takes to stay rich & powerful is not conspiracy thinking, it's common sense. The idea that a sizeable proportion of them will resort to unethical (even lethal) means to do so is not conspiracy thinking, it's common sense.
That's it, and I don't think Mr Carnegie here provides any significant evidence to the contrary. I mean, the same guy reportedly had strikers shot and killed, didn't he? It's hard to believe such a guy donated large amounts of money out of the goodness of his heart.
You did say they want to remain high status, likely due to their over indexing in narcissism. Even if that’s not your main point, the logical leap that we seem to disagree on is that promoting illiteracy is the means to that end. Carnegie does provide evidence against that, as does all the libraries and educational buildings that are named for wealthy donors.
There’s a philosophical argument that all altruism is actually selfish in nature, so I don’t think your premise holds that the wealthy are unique in this regard. What you seem to be saying is that they are complicated just the same as everyone else, just with more resources. If your only point is that wealthy people are status-minded, I don't disagree. I disagree that they are uniquely status-minded. As William Storr's work attests, we are all status-driven apes, whether wealthy or not.
You also didn’t answer the question about what it would take to change your mind, which is usually indicative of a dogmatic, rather than reasoned, position.
>The prevalence of assholes is a documented thing...latest numbers I've heard was over 6% of clinical narcissists...who would ever be surprised that high-status people like being high-status?...the idea that rich assholes would like to keep the education level of the general population below a threatening threshold...it's just obvious."
Feel free to clarify, but to me, this reads as, "Rich people, being narcissists, will try to maintain their high status by keeping the education level of the general populace low."
It also reads as a narrative talking point without good evidence to support it. I.e., "I can't prove it, I just know it's true."
Wrong reading. I never intended to make a generalisation out of 6% or even triple that amount. I just wanted to establish that rich assholes are a thing.
You seem to imply they are a higher rate of rich
assholes, no? The most cited research on this (Piff et al.) is highly flawed IMO and hasn’t been able to be replicated.
Or is your point that people are assholes in general? If the latter, I’m failing to see how that gets connected to rich people actively suppressing education, especially when, as you say, they are the most likely to donate money to those causes.
> You seem to imply they are a higher rate of rich assholes, no?
It seems likely. But that's a detail, because I believe the more important effect is the contempt higher-class people can have towards lower-class people. Some of it may even come from cognitive dissonance. See, barring a few exceptions, one does not get rich just by working. One also has to exploit other people, to spoil them of a fraction of their added value. The richer you are the truer this gets, and then you have to find some way to look at yourself in the mirror despite that.
> actively suppressing education
I don't recall saying that. My exact words were: "I don't know about libraries specifically, but the idea that rich assholes would like to keep the education level of the general population below a threatening threshold is not conspiracy thinking to me, it's just obvious."
> especially when, as you say, they are the most likely to donate money to those causes.
I didn't say that either. My exact words were: "the largest contributor to pretty much anything has to be ludicrously rich. Because the only way to give that much, is to own even more."
You certainly did say those things. They are quoted from your posts, but abbreviated to be less verbose and wandering. I used ellipses to show where words were cut, and I think you understand this so you seem to just be difficult/obtuse out of a desire to argue.
To be generous, you said they are the "largest contributors" which I agree is different than being "most likely." But the research does show they are more likely, possibly because they are in a position to do so. I think that's what connects to your point.
Just as a counterpoint to your late-stage capitalism-esque viewpoint, wealthy are also shown to over index in conscientiousness in some studies. This is a personality trait that relates to persistence which is an alternate explanation for goal-attainment (ie wealth).
> Just as a counterpoint to your late-stage capitalism-esque viewpoint, wealthy are also shown to over index in conscientiousness in some studies.
I fail to see how this is a counter point. Sure, conscientiousness, and I would add work ethics certainly explain some inequality. But even if they explained most of it (exploiting people does require work, and I'd expect the more conscientious capitalists are better at it), they would still come far, far short of morally justifying the level of inequality we observe today.
No billionaire ever deserved to be that wealthy.
Now we can discuss incentives, and I can accept that a good system may need to allow some people to accumulate undeserved wealth. Still, I will note that the mere existence of billionaires is a threat to democracy. (Or a blocker: our representative governments aren't very democratic to begin with, and we have studies showing that when billionaires and the people disagree over a piece of legislation the billionaires win most of the time.)
My current opinion on this is that putting a hard cap on individual wealth is a good thing. Furthermore, I think this hard cap should be well under $1B, almost certainly below $100M.
Well, that's probably because you are constantly arguing different points that aren't necessarily germane to the discussion. Remember, this was about your point that wealthy people build their wealth by suppressing education in the general populace. So this is a counter-point in that it is possible to build wealth by conscientious behavior instead. There is some research on the latter, but really only conjecture and false narratives on the former.
Wealth inequality and the state of democracy are digressions from that point. I don't think I made any statements about what level of wealth inequality is healthy for the stability of a society, let alone a moral argument for it, nor did I make any claims about democracy. Again, this just comes across as you having an axe to grind, and you'll shoehorn in talking points without addressing the central claim.
> This is conspiracy level thinking. Nobody wealthy is sitting around scheming how to keep the proles dumb and subdued.
Of course not. They're scheming about how to monetize education, knowledge, and research.
> 1) Stop wasting my tax dollars on stuff I don't use or care about. Or 2) I bet there is an untapped commercial market that can be built, and people will love my solution more than public libraries.
(2) Gets a lot easier if you first advocate for (1) to make the public libraries worse.
> Nobody wealthy is sitting around scheming how to keep the proles dumb and subdued.
They dont sit around scheming, they work, walk around doing it in action.
Company executives keep adding ingredients to processed food to make them addictive knowing it’ll hurt health outcomes and lead to more death.
Company executives continue to sell medicine that they sell for $20 or $10 in Europe or India, but charge americans $5000 or higher for the same medicine in the same package.
They shut down any research paper that outs them, by suppressing the findings, like Facebook or Junk food companies do whenever a research is conducted on their products.
We should celebrate our pioneers and innovators, but we shouldn’t ignore it blindly when MBA execs and Beancounters actively sabotage and hurt their own customers and the masses. Businesses are awesome, but it shouldnt be used to give a no questions asked green flag to anyone who runs businesses.
There are people actively lobbying for policies that lead to more american deaths, bankruptcies, families breaking into shambles, and the government watching from the sidelines and even sometimes helping to make it all happen.
Yes, there are people who do want to subdue the masses and keep them dumb, just as long as it helps them buy 1 more yacht or few more 0s in their bank balance.
I say it as a free market capitalist who is ardently anti-communist.
> Nobody wealthy is sitting around scheming how to keep the proles dumb and subdued.
There are corporate divisions doing A/B tests, etc. to find out what works for the lowest common denominator, and how to profit more from someone's ignorance. Many people here are directly involved in making it happen.
OverDrive (and Libby) were acquired by KKR, the behemoth PE firm responsible for bankrupting Toys R Us. KKR also acquired one of the Big Five publishing houses last year. I'm worried about public library funds being squeezed by an extractive PE playbook.
I wonder what kind of negotiating power a regional library has in that situation. Do state library agencies have more leverage than regional libraries? Do large states like California have more leverage in negotiating digital licenses than smaller states? Would a national library system have even more leverage? I'll ask a librarian tomorrow and report back.
OverDrive is a strong player but they’re still a commodity. Publishers and libraries can use other lending platforms if and when they emerge as stronger competitors. This article serves as a good overview: https://openeducationalberta.ca/ciicm/chapter/public-library...
They can afford to educate their own line and hoard resources across generations doing so. They can fail as many times as it takes before they finally succeed because of this. They throw the bodies of the world at their problems until they are solved, which necessitates an uneducated populace that doesn't realize they're chattel and canon fodder to this purpose. A populace that fear collective power, that fears community beyond immediate family, that shies away from actions that would better the world in favor of actions that are less risky personally.
Elites are always worried about the labor crisis - “nobody wants to work”. Usually this is about blue collar work, and their desire to underpay and overwork service/laborers.
Globally, this class of people definitely wants to reduce literacy to keep a stream of manual labor inflowing.
The number of vastly unequal societies throughout history who have banned the lower classes from learning how to read, or from any kind of education at all - beyond whatever narrow training will make them better perform their specific duties for those on top.
...and not just historically. Some societies where significant minority groups are banned from getting an education, in order to further perpetuate their marginalisation, still exist today.
The response to your comment thread here is some pretty high flying conspiracies. The thought that those in power would try and make the country illiterate is straight up ridiculous. That would completely undermine the competitiveness of the country AND the time line to get any benefit for the "elites or whomever is behind it" would be significantly long.
Now if you are talking about a country like India - sure I could see Modi doing that. In that case it would be more about restricting growth and investment into education then dismantling an economy built on knowledge.
I don't think I said anything about making people illiterate.
Undermining literacy means so they are not as literate as they could be to improve their lives.
For example, there are more than a few studies on literacy and education levels of the political spectrum for better and worse.
India is a different world. The crime against humanity that is the caste system all but forbade 1-3% of the population to be permitted to learn how to read. 95-98% of Indians were not permitted to learn how to read, and had to rely on the interpretations of the less populous castes.
Ironically it is a minority that largely broke this logjam and helped push literacy for the many forward.
I'll gladly take the downvotes for speaking the truth about caste being a divider between people and society.
Hence book bans and torching, although it's backfiring because they're being too general to try and avoid coming across as too totalitarian, so things like bibles are being banned too. Whoops.
The advocates of "whole-language" learning as against "phonics" seem to do a fair job of limiting or undermining literacy. Yet how it benefits them I don't see. And what is the reference of "it" in the last sentence? Literacy, or limited or undermined literacy?
In contrast, public libraries around the Philly area are essentially dead. Town libraries are so underfunded that their mortar presences are open only until 7 PM M-Th, close at 5 F & Sa, and are closed Sundays. They have greatly reduced their paper book holdings and now rely almost entirely on ebooks, which number fewer than 2000, and interlibrary loans of any kind do not exist.
In contrast, public libraries in Michigan are thriving (another place I know well). I have no idea why the difference is so stark.
In my over 60 years, I've never lived anywhere so illiterate as Philly.
> public libraries in Michigan are thriving (another place I know well). I have no idea why the difference is so stark.
I can't speak for Philly, but Michiganders have a long long-standing community tradition of fighting to defend our public libraries from an onslaught of various attacks. And while the quality of the library system can vary (based on location and local funding authority), Michiganders generally have majority support for public libraries as an institution, and pass successful votes for them regularly.
(historic Library voting records)
https://www.michigan.gov/libraryofmichigan/-/media/Project/W... (be careful reading this, not every red/failing vote is bad -- for example, May 2023's red line is a success for that public library, that something bad did not pass)
Are you implying the OP was over-sampling on wealthier Michigan neighborhoods? Because I read their quote as applying to Michigan as a whole, and there are certainly parts of Michigan that are poor enough to have strained local taxes.
Not at all. I literally mean that libraries are funded by communities (i.e. private groups, towns, counties, states), and some communities chose to fund them lavishly and some not to fund them at all.
Where in Michigan? I regularly visit libraries in Ann Arbor, and Whitmore Lake. Both have libraries that are a wonderful resource for the community, but the difference in funding is obvious.
This! I'm from Oregon but live in Thailand, where there are ZERO libraries. My absolute favorite thing about going home is just maxxing out my library card and seeing how much I can get through before heading home (I can do ebooks and audiobooks while abroad with Libby but I'm one of those obnoxious people that always prefers physical)
This is an exaggeration. I also live in Thailand, and I just got a library card at the very stately Neilson Hayes library last week. A bit pricey (3000 THB/year) but amazing ambience since the library was built in 1860.
Yea $100 bucks a year for a small historical library with a very limited selection of English books (that's 45 minutes away from me) doesn't really compare to a free library that's in every city in the US (or many libraries in bigger cities)
it's odd to me that you'd expect a large stock of English books in any regular Thai library
even in Japan, with perhaps the very strongest reading culture in the world, you're going to find a relatively limited selection of books in library outside of their own language
you'll likely have less success finding a varied stock of Thai books in Oregon, to the surprise of nobody
There are hundreds of great ones, but Tale of Genji (classic), The Master of Go (amazing if you like the board game Go), Coin Locker Babies (Ryu Murkami > Haruki Murkami), Out by Natsuo Kirino.
I mean there are actually quite a few public libraries here, but of course the selection is primarily in Thai. I don't know why anyone would expect otherwise.
To the above posters credit, it sounds like their claim of exaggeration was spot on (he didn't say it was a lie). You didn't say their libraries don't compare to US ones, you said they don't exist.
I haven't been to Thailand, but I assume there are also libraries at the universities. The parent appears to be referring to a tradition of public libraries, so these are not really counterexamples.
I've used private English libraries in various countries of the Middle East and East Asia. For the expat community, they were really a treasure before the internet.
University libraries are sort of a mixed bag. They're not really advertised but they're fairly open to public browsing in some cases, however pretty locked-down in others.
Libraries can be a useful place for homeless, or low income, people to get access to a computer to write up a resume, apply for jobs, etc.
The people who forget about libraries are likely well off. Shutting down libraries to feed the homeless doesn’t make sense, as libraries are a tool that can allow them to eventually feed themselves, if well used.
You mentioning helping the homeless in this convo has the same kind of vibe to me as conservatives only mentioning mental health when talking about gun control.
They only ever mention mental health as a distraction from issues they do actually care about (like gun control), and have no interest in actually solving mental health issues. It's a typical way of bad faith arguing. That's just vibes though; there's a good chance you'd actually in earnest like to divert library funds toward helping the homeless. It's an issue that's very close to my heart too, so I get the sentiment.
Still, I disagree. Just because one of two problems is worse (e.g. literacy and homelessness, or murder and burglary) doesn't mean we can just ignore one problem in favor of another. Just because murder is worse than burglary doesn't mean we should divert all police attention and money currently being spent on burglary to solving murders. Just because women's rights in the US by far surpass those in Saudi Arabia doesn't mean we should take the efforts we put into women's rights issues in the US and divert them to solving women's right's issues in SA. Just because homelessness is in some sense worse than illiteracy and low education doesn't mean we should divert funds from libraries to solving homelessness.
Having written all this out, it feels far too obvious for you to not know this. Maybe it's not just vibes.
I volunteer at my local food bank to help feed to homeless. I understand just how dire the need is. Libraries are a luxury we cannot afford right now, and frankly nobody uses them. Any 'feel good' purpose like 'literacy' is already met by public schools. There's already federal subsidies for internet and telephone for the needy, and the people that live too far away to get internet definitely don't have the money or means to drive into town to use the library.
I would be willing to compromise on small buildings that function as internet cafes that are free to use for the public, we can get rid of all the excess staff and books, though.
> I volunteer at my local food bank to help feed to homeless. I understand just how dire the need is.
If you spent much deal actually dealing with the homeless themselves, you'd know how crucial a resource a library is for homeless people. For something you see as "dire", you don't seem to have even done anything as simple as google "libraries help homeless."
> Libraries are a luxury we cannot afford right now,
Completely false. Libraries are one of the areas of public spending where the return per dollar spent is highest. Libraries are social institutions we cannot afford not to fund.
> and frankly nobody uses them
Again, you seem to have failed to do basic research as libraries get a ton of use and genetally suffer from a lack of funding relative to their usage rates.
> There's already federal subsidies for internet and telephone for the needy, and the people that live too far away to get internet definitely don't have the money or means to drive into town to use the library.
Most poor people are urban and in dense enough areas to that easily access libraries could be (and often are) available.
> I would be willing to compromise on small buildings that function as internet cafes that are free to use for the public, we can get rid of all the excess staff and books, though.
Oh, how generous of you. Why don't you go meet some librarians and learn about what they actually do before you write off their usefulness.
What do you think you've done to sway my opinion on the matter? There's a finite amount of money, and more pressing needs than letting people checkout paper books.
Let's look at it like this: Current budget: $100; $90 going to library, $10 going to feeding the needy. We can assume that even the entire library's budget won't overcome the shortfall in feeding the needy.
You're choosing to let more people be unfed in order that a handful of people can read Harry Potter or whatever is popular these days. Bad trade off.
Libraries have more than Harry Potter books. They have books that allow people to learn skills that would be valuable in getting a job. There are meeting rooms and events. My local library has a ESL program to help people with their English skills, which can help make them more employable. During the heatwaves last summer they were telling people who couldn’t afford AC to come to the library to escape the heat, which may have saved some lives.
Libraries can help get people to the point where fewer people need the food bank. Maybe you should see what the library actually has to offer before you try to cut it from the budget.
There are so many other areas to find room in the budget without cutting libraries.
> What do you think you've done to sway my opinion on the matter?
I thought correcting your facts would have that effect. If your opinion isn't fact based, I doubt there's anything I can do to change your opinion. All I can do is callout the misinformation you are spreading.
> Let's look at it like this: Current budget: $100; $90 going to library, $10 going to feeding the needy. We can assume that even the entire library's budget won't overcome the shortfall in feeding the needy.
Or... set tax rates sufficient to do both? Neither actually costs that much. Lack of funding for either has to do with politics, not practicality.
You do realize that library budget cuts wouldn't automatically go to housing and feeding the homeless, right? And considering most municipalities seem to treat homeless people as cockroaches, the money would probably go to fund a new sports stadium or as a tax break for some new business.
Terribly ironic of you to want to divert library funds to homeless when the homeless are some of the most faithful users of libraries in major cities. Homeless aid organizations even base their programs around libraries.
Maybe this isn't as common in your region, but just about every library I've visited provides social services for the homeless.
If you search /r/libraries you'll find first-hand accounts from librarians who are committed to serving homeless patrons, even though they didn't sign up for a social worker role. Honestly, I wish I could allocate MORE funds to those kind of people instead of the grifters who profit from the "homeless industrial complex."
It's not disruption to make me wait 5 weeks to read a digital file through my local library's Libby service. It's an outdated business model using artificial scarcity that isn't effective at getting books onto readers devices. Spotify doesn't make me take out a hold on the artist I want to listen to. Netflix doesn't make me queue to watch the latest release.
Netflix has licensing restrictions too, but the limitation is time/exclusivity (rather than number of copies). You can only watch whatever Netflix owns distribution rights to. Although Netflix does charge more per device, so that's a bit like charging per "copy" of their service on top of the limited distribution.
I'm wondering if you'd really prefer a library system where you could get some titles instantly, but the majority of content is unavailable because some other digital service provider owns distribution in your region for the next 12-16 months. I'd hate that, personally.
I do pay for my library card, because my city doesn't have a library (unless you count bookmobile), and the nearby cities that do have libraries charge you to get a library card if you aren't a resident. And it is approx. $9.99/mo.
Wow... mine is $25/year. I live in a rural county, but work across the border in a less rural county, with a much bigger library system. For $25/year I get access to probably 10x as much stuff through them. I expect it might go to $30 this year.
The reason Spotify and Netflix don't make you wait is because they give the copyright owners money for views. A library does not, nor do I think they should.
The current business model of selling libraries ebooks that can only be viewed a max number of times before needing to be repurchased, or only for a limited amount of time, is a money grab pure and simple.
Since going full-time on my startup, I often work remotely at my local library. Over my time there, my eyes have been opened to what an absolute treasure public libraries are.
Besides the physical books everyone knows about, which are a treasure by themselves, there are many other valuable resources, as you mentioned, including:
- The Adobe suite, even including Character Animator
- Udemy
- Digital access to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and others
- Free notary services
- Print magazines and newspapers
- Puzzles
- Music and films
- eBooks and audiobooks
...not to mention community activities like classes, groups, and concerts.
Just being physically present in the library has benefited me. When I take breaks, I sometimes pick up a book at random. It may be about sales, health, politics, history. I sometimes come away with new ideas for my business, sometimes am just inspired or informed or amused in general.
I encourage anyone reading to stop by a library if you haven't been in a while. See what they offer. You might be surprised. And please, do what you can to support them in whatever way you can, even if that's just to use them, demonstrating the need for them by your patronage. We need these institutions, and they won't be around forever without our support.
I sincerely hope one day they get off their asses and implement casting that their predecessor, overdrive, had.
speaking of, btw, your library likely has 'partner' libraries where you can borrow stuff too using overdrive/libby. You can often see a list on top right of the overdrive page of your respective library.
The licensing costs for Ebooks are unsustainable for library's. The publishers don't want any sharing and so the cost per ebook vs physical is totally out of sync with Ebooks considerably higher. One could argue that publishers are the ones who are strangling the viability of libraries to exist.
This feels like something that could/should be legislated. Libraries should not be subject to the same restrictions on content sharing that consumers are.
Or maybe one better: eliminate restrictions on content sharing.
The only thing that kind of bothers me about libraries is that, as a tech focused individual, basically every book I read or whatever is either an ebook or a audiobook, and I don't want to have to go to the library to pick it out. I understand if I were getting physical books the need to go to a physical location to grab them, but if I'm getting something digital I don't want to have to go to the library. My library doesn't really offer an online catalog that you can just download from, only look at to see what you want to get in the library, and the free library services that they offer like the big ebook repositories don't have any books that I feel like I want to read, so it is just far easier to torrent things or have an audible subscription. Most libraries don't have really cool extra stuff like maker spaces or aquariums or anything remotely interesting other than books and maybe some computers for homeless people to use or whatever, so unless you're physically going there for a book, they're kind of pointless.
I'm not saying I don't appreciate and respect libraries, but they really just didn't change with the times around where I am, and it makes them far more inconvenient to use for someone in my particular position than it does to make them convenient. I will still support them as a public access, and I think it would be tragic if they went away, but I wish they would spend a little bit more of whatever budget they get investing on making it. Not a terrible experience to get shit online.
Yeah... Libraries are very much lovely places. Truly bliss how they can exist...
And about books themselves, I hate subscriptions, and all the DRM garbage, and if I can't own the epub without DRM, then I won't buy it. To be honest, the silver lining is that DeDRM exists, so I can actually obtain Japanese novels for my cute e-ink devices, but.. bleh.
In my city certain people are often using them and leaving... uh... errant trace elements of themselves on said resources, especially the public-use computers... :/
I'm not really a germaphobe, but in the age of the pandemic, I think public resources like libraries are under serious threat, just like busses and public transit. It would be nice if there was some sort of reassurance that cleaning and disinfecting was taking place between each use.
Lots of libraries let you volunteer if you're so inclined. Also, you can lobby for better library funding so that they can be staffed better. While you're at it, you need to find a better euphemism for homeless/unhomed people...
But you realize that you paid for all of this with your local taxes? It’s not like there is a magical place where laser cutters chose to spawn for free.
It might be great, but all the evidence says that we're not willing to nationalize the publishers in order to establish that deal as a durable offer, and that a private-sector publisher would change the terms of the deal the moment they'd gobbled up their competition, or perhaps even before. We would literally require that course of action from the corporate executives via the fiduciary duty.
>>> "Wouldn’t it be great if you could pay $9.99 a month and read all of the books you want?"
I sincerely hope nothing "disrupts" public libraries in my lifetime. As a California resident, I can walk into ANY public library in the state and get a free library card with access to physical books, audiobooks, ebooks. Some branches have laptops, hotspots, tablets, e-readers available to borrow. My local branch even has a Makerspace with 3D printers, laser cutters, sewing machines, and other misc tools.