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And we're all missing the point again. Libraries are about books. I go to libraries to borrow books, to read books and generally get access to books other than

And we're all missing the point again. Libraries are about books. I go to libraries to borrow books, to read books and generally get access to books other than Dan Brown and Harry Potter. That stuff is more than adequately supplied by the market: if I want mass-market paperbacks, I can get them used on Amazon for a penny plus shipping, much less than the cost of a bus ticket/train ticket/driving to the library. But more obscure stuff, out-of-print stuff, that's the value of libraries. And giving free (well, subsidised/low-cost) access to everyone who wants that is the value of libraries. I've got a Kindle. I use it as a place for storing personal documents, pretty much exclusively. Almost everything I read is not an e-book in any format. Almost everything on my bookshelves is not available as an e-book in any format. The long tail of books are not e-books and probably won't be for a long time. The point of libraries is exactly to ensure there isn't an information divide in society. Science, philosophy, literature, history, languages: these shouldn't be the preserve of people who can afford to buy the books or attend college or jump through the hoops needed to access research libraries. And it's all very well telling people to go use the Internet. What are they gonna do, look it up on Wikipedia? Fine, and where are the people who write Wikipedia going to get access to the books to write the Wikipedia articles? And what happens when they get to the end of the Wikipedia article and want to read more? It's the same with adult education: the government tell us that we need to become "lifelong learners" to survive in the current economy. How exactly are we to do that when adult education courses are closing and libraries are closing? A working programmer friend of mine wanted to do A-level in mathematics. He could only find one place in London that offers an adults course. To get into universities, students are more and more expected to have read outside their curriculum. Getting rid of libraries makes it so only the rich kids can get access to the books. And the only answer we can give them: go buy a Kindle. If education is the road to a better life, we sure as hell need to make sure the road is kept in good repair.

mrj 15y ago
In many towns libraries serve as a default community center. I get daily emails with all of the events happening in my small town and I would say at least half of those are at the local library. What you're saying is true, of course. But that over looks a great deal of value that libraries provide -- it's more than just bound paper on shelves.
- tommorris 15y ago
  Sure, that's definitely what the government bureaucrats call "value-add". But the problem is that sometimes the value-add seems to be the only thing they focus on. Decisions about library policy are done on the basis of the community stuff, how it'll affect parents with kids who use the library for story time, and the views of readers get neglected. I went to my local library today, and they've removed yet more non-fiction shelving to move the registrar of births, marriages and deaths into the library. The library seems willing to accomodate just about anything... except books, which seem to be the primary function. The library in the next town over has a monthly "meet animals" day, where someone brings in a ferret or a snake or something and kids get to see and pet an animal. Which is fine, and I haven't got a problem with that. The fact that every time I go in there, they have less books makes me all the less likely to want to scream and shout when the barbarians in pinstripes come to tear the place down and "streamline operations" and so on. Because of all the feel-good community stuff libraries have to do in order to remain "relevant", the actual point of the library gets slowly undermined and weakened. I don't blame the libraries: they are only doing what they need to do to survive. I blame the politicians and the public for undervaluing libraries.
  - king_jester 15y ago
    > Because of all the feel-good community stuff libraries have to do in order to remain "relevant", the actual point of the library gets slowly undermined and weakened. I want to point out that the actual point of a library is to do all of the things you mention. A community's library isn't just a repository of books, it's an integral public meeting space that facilitates access to information and helps with the needs of its community. Running programs for kids (in addition to ones for teens, adults, the poor, etc.) and providing access to civic information are all fair game for a public library. Libraries balance the needs of their communities, and in your community it sounds like there is a big demand for services other than books.
    - tommorris 15y ago
      In my area, we have one of the largest spends on libraries in the country. But unlike a lot of other groups, those of us who just turn up and want to borrow books seem to not get much say in library policy. I don't think any of the community stuff is bad, and the local government needs to provide services for people, but that's not an excuse for reducing the books on the shelves, making inter-library loan services worse and so on. Libraries serve a lot of constituencies, but they sometimes forget that readers are one of them.
tjr 15y ago
I agree, in principle, but I think one of the issues is that it is increasingly common for library patrons to ignore the books and head for the computers. I don't have hard statistics on this, but if it's true, then I imagine it's hard for libraries (and the governments that support them) to justify pouring more resources into keeping the book collections robust, if too few of the people they are serving don't care about the books. And even on the digital front, I fear that people are reading more blogs and tweets and fewer books. Even Kindles won't matter to people whose reading attention span is limited to a couple sentences at a time... :-( (This, though, is a bit of speculation and anecdotal conjecture on my part. I would be interested in hearing if others have observed the same or not.)
- tommorris 15y ago
  Sure, but it's an is-ought thing. More people may be using computers in a library than using books. More people prefer McDonald's to healthy eating doesn't mean health policy needs to follow preferences. The point of an institution is it is supposed to stand for something. A library exists because of the belief that literacy, knowledge, research, ideas and creativity are good things. That some people don't see them as good things doesn't mean they are right.
  - lurker17 15y ago
    Are you saying that the computers are inferior to the books as a resource for "iteracy, knowledge, research, ideas and creativity"? Pound for pound, inch for inch, and dollar for dollar, the computers are better than the books.
    - tommorris 15y ago
      No, I'm saying that both are needed. Thinking that computers will solve all problems in libraries and can just be a drop in replacement for books is a bit like thinking that bicycles will solve all transportation problems. Computers and IT do improve literacy, knowledge, research, ideas and creativity. But in a huge number of specific cases, books are very much needed too, and will be for a long time to come.
keithpeter 15y ago
"A working programmer friend of mine wanted to do A-level in mathematics. He could only find one place in London that offers an adults course." I work in Adult Education in the UK, and I also teach in a local Further Education College. You won't find an AS/A2 level course in Maths or any of the Sciences easily now. Its because of 'data driven management', which brings this post back on topic for this forum... The short version: AS/A2 Maths and Science subjects are specialised and difficult. Evening class students have work and family commitments. They start a course with great enthusiasm, then, usually just after the New Year, reality kicks in with the cold weather and the difficulty of finding time to study. People drop out of the course. Those who have the time and self-organisation to make it to the exams usually pass, although grades are not astounding. Data: when you attend a course in a Skills Funding Agency funded programme, your attendance is monitored and used to compile something called an ISR. Your attendance and the outcome of your exams are on the database. Success: The percentage of the students who started left at the end is called 'retention'. The percentage of students who took the exam who pass is called 'achievement'. Success = retention * achievement. "Raising Standards": Success rates are compared with national benchmarks. Courses with pass rates that are more than 5% below benchmark are 'poor quality'. Single course percentages are aggregated (in wonderful ways) to give success figures for departments. Departments have success targets. Easiest way to improve your success? Dump the low performing courses. They happen to be the harder subjects. There is a small industry in specialised data mining and tracking software that will process the database and 'pull out' the success statistics. Most of the applications look like they are written in VB or something similar, but some have Web interfaces. Middle managers in colleges in the UK spend an awful lot of time going through the database reports. So now you know! Next time a politician speaks about 'raising standards in education' be aware that the only way you get fast change in the pass rates is by simply removing the lower scores by closing the courses.

mrj 15y ago

In many towns libraries serve as a default community center. I get daily emails with all of the events happening in my small town and I would say at least half of those are at the local library. What you're saying is true, of course. But that over looks a great deal of value that libraries provide -- it's more than just bound paper on shelves.

tommorris 15y ago
Sure, that's definitely what the government bureaucrats call "value-add". But the problem is that sometimes the value-add seems to be the only thing they focus on. Decisions about library policy are done on the basis of the community stuff, how it'll affect parents with kids who use the library for story time, and the views of readers get neglected. I went to my local library today, and they've removed yet more non-fiction shelving to move the registrar of births, marriages and deaths into the library. The library seems willing to accomodate just about anything... except books, which seem to be the primary function. The library in the next town over has a monthly "meet animals" day, where someone brings in a ferret or a snake or something and kids get to see and pet an animal. Which is fine, and I haven't got a problem with that. The fact that every time I go in there, they have less books makes me all the less likely to want to scream and shout when the barbarians in pinstripes come to tear the place down and "streamline operations" and so on. Because of all the feel-good community stuff libraries have to do in order to remain "relevant", the actual point of the library gets slowly undermined and weakened. I don't blame the libraries: they are only doing what they need to do to survive. I blame the politicians and the public for undervaluing libraries.
- king_jester 15y ago
  > Because of all the feel-good community stuff libraries have to do in order to remain "relevant", the actual point of the library gets slowly undermined and weakened. I want to point out that the actual point of a library is to do all of the things you mention. A community's library isn't just a repository of books, it's an integral public meeting space that facilitates access to information and helps with the needs of its community. Running programs for kids (in addition to ones for teens, adults, the poor, etc.) and providing access to civic information are all fair game for a public library. Libraries balance the needs of their communities, and in your community it sounds like there is a big demand for services other than books.
  - tommorris 15y ago
    In my area, we have one of the largest spends on libraries in the country. But unlike a lot of other groups, those of us who just turn up and want to borrow books seem to not get much say in library policy. I don't think any of the community stuff is bad, and the local government needs to provide services for people, but that's not an excuse for reducing the books on the shelves, making inter-library loan services worse and so on. Libraries serve a lot of constituencies, but they sometimes forget that readers are one of them.

tjr 15y ago

I agree, in principle, but I think one of the issues is that it is increasingly common for library patrons to ignore the books and head for the computers. I don't have hard statistics on this, but if it's true, then I imagine it's hard for libraries (and the governments that support them) to justify pouring more resources into keeping the book collections robust, if too few of the people they are serving don't care about the books. And even on the digital front, I fear that people are reading more blogs and tweets and fewer books. Even Kindles won't matter to people whose reading attention span is limited to a couple sentences at a time... :-( (This, though, is a bit of speculation and anecdotal conjecture on my part. I would be interested in hearing if others have observed the same or not.)

tommorris 15y ago
Sure, but it's an is-ought thing. More people may be using computers in a library than using books. More people prefer McDonald's to healthy eating doesn't mean health policy needs to follow preferences. The point of an institution is it is supposed to stand for something. A library exists because of the belief that literacy, knowledge, research, ideas and creativity are good things. That some people don't see them as good things doesn't mean they are right.
- lurker17 15y ago
  Are you saying that the computers are inferior to the books as a resource for "iteracy, knowledge, research, ideas and creativity"? Pound for pound, inch for inch, and dollar for dollar, the computers are better than the books.
  - tommorris 15y ago
    No, I'm saying that both are needed. Thinking that computers will solve all problems in libraries and can just be a drop in replacement for books is a bit like thinking that bicycles will solve all transportation problems. Computers and IT do improve literacy, knowledge, research, ideas and creativity. But in a huge number of specific cases, books are very much needed too, and will be for a long time to come.

keithpeter 15y ago

"A working programmer friend of mine wanted to do A-level in mathematics. He could only find one place in London that offers an adults course." I work in Adult Education in the UK, and I also teach in a local Further Education College. You won't find an AS/A2 level course in Maths or any of the Sciences easily now. Its because of 'data driven management', which brings this post back on topic for this forum... The short version: AS/A2 Maths and Science subjects are specialised and difficult. Evening class students have work and family commitments. They start a course with great enthusiasm, then, usually just after the New Year, reality kicks in with the cold weather and the difficulty of finding time to study. People drop out of the course. Those who have the time and self-organisation to make it to the exams usually pass, although grades are not astounding. Data: when you attend a course in a Skills Funding Agency funded programme, your attendance is monitored and used to compile something called an ISR. Your attendance and the outcome of your exams are on the database. Success: The percentage of the students who started left at the end is called 'retention'. The percentage of students who took the exam who pass is called 'achievement'. Success = retention * achievement. "Raising Standards": Success rates are compared with national benchmarks. Courses with pass rates that are more than 5% below benchmark are 'poor quality'. Single course percentages are aggregated (in wonderful ways) to give success figures for departments. Departments have success targets. Easiest way to improve your success? Dump the low performing courses. They happen to be the harder subjects. There is a small industry in specialised data mining and tracking software that will process the database and 'pull out' the success statistics. Most of the applications look like they are written in VB or something similar, but some have Web interfaces. Middle managers in colleges in the UK spend an awful lot of time going through the database reports. So now you know! Next time a politician speaks about 'raising standards in education' be aware that the only way you get fast change in the pass rates is by simply removing the lower scores by closing the courses.