15 ms·

Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

928 points by blatherard 15y ago

nazgulnarsil 15y ago
first world poor are not an interesting class of people. There are bigger fish to fry.
unimpressive 15y ago
Taking a look backwards, Theodore Nelsons "Computer Lib: You can and must understand computers NOW!" takes on a whole new meaning 38 years later. (And is sadly out of print.) The hacker culture that contrasted itself against the IBM priesthood has itself become a priesthood. We've given a significant portion of the world personal computers. And told almost nobody how to use them.
jph 15y ago
Excelllent view from the inside. The problem the article highlights is filling out gov't forms that have moved to the web; these are often just PDF scans. These gov't forms are often ripe for improvement via improved UX with step-by-step inputs, contextual help, and multi-language capabilities.
- 54mf 15y ago
  In my experience, practically anything to do with a government and technology is certain to be a terrible mess. Forms are just the tip of the iceberg; take a look at any interface created to "replace" a paper form. I haven't seen one that looked or functioned like it had been updated in a decade.
  - philwelch 15y ago
    > take a look at any interface created to "replace" a paper form. I haven't seen one that looked or functioned like it had been updated in a decade. The best example I can think of is tax software, and that's hardly changed in a decade. Sadly, most "replace a paper form" interfaces fall short even of that.
- unimpressive 15y ago
  "These gov't forms are often ripe for improvement via improved UX with step-by-step inputs, contextual help, and multi-language capabilities." Sure, and this would undoubtedly relieve a lot of pain points. But the authors intent here goes deeper than just interface. A significant, very non-trivial portion of the population is being left behind by digitalization. These people have no recourse if certain government institutions only handle online forms. Imagine for a second that you have no web experience whatsoever, and you are greeted by the firefox startup screen. A hard thing to do I know, but as it stands if this is your position it's hard to get out of. Where do you even start? Who can you ask for help in an increasingly competitive solipsistic environment? (Solipsistic, according to my spell check, is not a word, but it's meaning should be obvious to those familiar with solipsism.) It's hard to imagine the peasants plight when your sitting in the Vatican. EDIT: Going further, even the people that you wouldn't expect, generation Z, don't really understand computers either. And I'm not sure if they really want to. I mean, sure they can use facebook, but if they ever have "a cool idea" good luck to them figuring out how to express it in digital media. I wonder how many brilliant web startups, game changers, and generally disruptive ideas are trapped in the heads of people who will never get an opportunity to try them out.
  - tomjen3 15y ago
    If you are 53 you have had plenty of time over the last ten years to learn to use computers. As for what I would do if I was operating firefox for the first time? Try. Or ask somebody next to me (or one of those standing in line).
    - deleted 15y ago
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    - unimpressive 15y ago
      While I like to think that if you asked for help you would get it, how do you normally respond when people ask you to help them with computer tasks? Now I don't know about you, but my first instinct is to flee. Helping people with computers, a lot of the time, is annoying. This is compounded by the condescending attitude that most computer users have towards "non-computer" people. If you ask someone to help you with filling out forms, or logging into facebook, or whatever it is you want to do, your probably going to be met with an attitude analogous to "You silly idiot...". I'm not trying to take the moral high ground here, chances are I've acted on this attitude just as many times (On average for years of life.) as you may have, probably more. It's a very damaging meme. And very hard to eradicate. EDIT: This was originally appended to my post above. But I eventually decided that was basically just a way of replying that bloated the discussion.
benwerd 15y ago
A thousand times this. I find the ultra-libertarian stance that our community sometimes takes to be counter to what web applications have been about. Are we empowering people or aren't we? Libraries are hugely important knowledge transfer hubs (and, as the MeFi commenter rightly says, community centers). Furthermore, selfishly, for us as builders, they're the only place a lot of people will ever come into contact with the stuff we make. They can't be allowed to die. The entire California library system was given $12m in state funds in 2008. It's now down to zero. How can we, as a community, help?
- xenophanes 15y ago
  The libertarian stance is not "there should be no libraries" but more like "if there is a genuine need for libraries, and value in having them (quite plausible), then Government funding is not the best approach to creating them or running them efficiently". Just because something is good doesn't mean the tax payers should pay for it. There are other options. If they are a great idea, why not persuade people to voluntarily pay for them? Or if they are providing value, why don't they make money? Perhaps they could provide some services for free and charge for others. Or profitably provide some services very cheaply.
  - pavs 15y ago
    > ust because something is good doesn't mean the tax payers should pay for it. There are other options. if you remove 'good' with 'useful', and it seems to me that this is exactly what tax payers should pay for. There are tons of useless shit tax money is used for, libraries is not one of them.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
      - intended 15y ago
        Wasting? How is it a waste in your opinion? Edit: You are getting downvoted, so at least you should have a chance to explain your position.
AlexMuir 15y ago
I wonder if big, successful tech companies should be dipping into their pockets to fund internet training- not as charity, but as an investment. eBay, Facebook, Netflix and Google, for instance. Between those four, there must easily be an annual $100 in revenue from having an extra US person online. So for them to invest $15 each in free classes for someone seems like a no-brainer. Plus it buys good PR and goodwill. Plus it's almost certainly tax deductible.
- celoyd 15y ago
  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem . This is what governments are for.
  - eCa 15y ago
    Yes. And as a corollary, taxes.
  - mtraven 15y ago
    It is what governments are for, but given the current spectacular failures of government, quasi-monopolistic corporations that can afford it might as well take on some of their functions. There's a tradition of plutocrats contributing in this way [1], and like the commenter said, it actually would help Google's business. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_library http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_library
    - zanny 15y ago
      I just want to mention as an extention to this thought bubble, a better phrasing would be "this is what small, local, regionally influenced and funded governments are for". If boroughs and counties had more relevance in society they could easily do things like this if they feel it would be beneficial (IE, they are a rural community with little techie knowledge, so offer training and info sessions to the populace at the local library!)
    - bryanlarsen 15y ago
afterburner 15y ago
"This is, in part, because outside of the ALA (which is a great organization, a great lobbying body, but perhaps not quite strong enough nor well funded enough) there is no large, overarching public library thing. There isn't a central office that can dictate policy, allocate funds, and launch a massive PR campaign. At different levels, yes, there are state and county and non-profit organizations, but the existential crises that libraries now face is massive, universal, and needs coordinated effort. " Hmm, maybe a library czar in Washington? Although something separate from party politics might be better...
melling 15y ago
I skimmed the article and got to the first comment complaining that Larry Ellison spends millions on the America's Cup and he doesn't give a crap ... Basically, the problem is that for years CA, and America in general, spent money that it didn't have and now it's going to get painful. There's no point in whining and complaining. Americans are doing it to themselves. Sit down and decide what we can afford to pay for and quit kicking the can down the road.
- RandallBrown 15y ago
  I think you read the wrong thing. This post is about the metafilter comment that is a story about a poor person using a library.
  - melling 15y ago
    I thought it was about how people need libraries and the funds are being cut.
    - unimpressive 15y ago
      It's about a lot of things at once. But libraries are the frame for the rest of the piece. As far as I can tell topics covered are: 0) The digital divide. 1) Cutting of Public benefits 2) Cutting of library funds specifically 3) How libraries help gap the digital divide but even with funding are just helping people tread water. 4) That the will, money, and effort to change this situation might not be there.
      - melling 15y ago
        Like a said, we've spent more than we have for a little too long. Now this type of story doesn't really belong on HN. It's the type where you get downvoted for not having the liberal opinion. Bad news, it's going to get worse. Debt is at 100% of GDP.
- mcantelon 15y ago
  >Basically, the problem is that for years CA, and America in general, spent money that it didn't have and now it's going to get painful. I think it's more that we spend money on the wrong things and that taxes aren't structured to reflect the reality that wealth is concentrating into fewer hands.
feralchimp 15y ago
TL;DR - Just because you don't use the library doesn't mean no one needs them anymore. Not everyone's Real Life Issues are amenable to a self-service web portal, and that's not just because no one has built the right widgets yet. > it will be a slow death by a thousand cuts It will be a slow descent into budget fugue, followed by an extremely quick death when we pass an inflection point in "the number of people who remember getting awesome value out of their local/municipal library system." I bet when a lot of people here first started hearing about library closures in their old neighborhood, or wherever they're living now, their initial reaction was one of total shock followed by "well I guess I can see how that could happen." When people hear about library closures now, they could be skipping the shock entirely, passing smoothly through "aw that's too bad", and fading into "well there's Google." > [the library] need[s] to become the center of civic engagement We need a center of civic engagement with both equality and equity of access. Libraries are a decent foundation on which to build such a thing, but there's at least one common feature of libraries that makes them awful for this: people are supposed to be quiet in the library. There should be almost nothing quiet about civic engagement, finding a job, learning new skills, research, etc. Less giant rooms with rows of people not saying anything; more smaller sound-proofed rooms with whiteboards and projectors. Like a giant executive briefing center, only with fewer executives and more regular folks with something to ask/teach each other.
- sopooneo 15y ago
  That is a good idea, though I favor chalk boards. But it would be great. In order to bring it about a lot of difficult management problems would have to be solved. For instance, people are going to be turning tricks in all those separated rooms pretty quickly.
  - feralchimp 15y ago
    Technical response: soundproof != optically opaque Cynical political response: "turning tricks" == good first approximation of dealing with a modern government Entrepreneurial response: "turning tricks" + video cameras + fast uplink == revenue model
  - 15y ago
Shenglong 15y ago
Drawing a parallel to the Canadian healthcare system: I haven't been sick in 12 years. Yet, every year, I pay taxes to keep the public healthcare system running. Even though it's not something I use, undoubtedly, there are people who need it, and wouldn't be able to pay for it if it wasn't public. About a month ago, I exhibited the symptoms of some kind of ventricular tachycardia (heart arrhythmia). As advised by a friend in medicine (in a different city), I tried to get myself booked for an ECG, to see what exactly was wrong. Without getting into the details, let's just say that even to this day, I haven't been able to get one. I can definitely see why people don't want to pay, not just for services that they'll never use, but for services they'll probably be unable to use, even if they ever need to.
- leot 15y ago
  As a Canadian in the U.S., believe me when I say that in America you would be paying more to get even less. The amount of inefficiency, conflicts of interest, hypocrisy, bureaucracy, and redundancy in the U.S. system beggars belief.
- ashayh 15y ago
  Can you pay and get one? How much would that cost?
- msbarnett 15y ago
  You're not unable to use the system, you're just not able to use the system frivolously. Procedures like ECGs arent performed at patient request, they're performed by specialists when a qualified physician determines a need for one and refers you to a specialist. You can't get yourself an ECG not because they're unavailable, but simply because "Joe Random from city X says you need one" caries as much weight with Heart Specialists as "my cousin Bob says you should give me a new laptop" does with warrantee repairmen.
  - Shenglong 15y ago
    That's actually not true at all. They'll rush ECG procedures if you're currently exhibiting symptoms at that moment. Yes, if I were rushed to the hospital, I could probably get one. Somethings tells me that by then, it's probably too late.
anrope 15y ago
Maybe I'm just not in a skeptical mood today, but the anecdote in that story points out something that I tend to take for granted. I'm probably not alone, especially here on HN. That is, the fact that some people just really don't understand the most basic concepts of using a computer. And it's not their fault. Your breath seizes in your chest, and you realize you have no idea what to do. You have the form that they gave you at the social services office, which has an address, which you sort of know what that does, but you can't quite remember – 17 minutes, by the way. You try typing X City Social Services in a box at the top, a page comes back and says “address not found” with a list of things below it. You're panicking... I'm all for increasing the use of technology in order to make things work more smoothly and efficiently, but this story points out just how left-behind this can leave some people. I guess the answer is better education, and not just in schools. I guess I can be glad that there are a lot of people working in that space. Even then, before anyone can use Khan Academy or enroll in online classes, they need to have a better idea of "what a [web] address does", and sometimes even whether to "do a left or right click".
- danielford 15y ago
  I've been surprised by the lack of technical ability in my college classes, especially from students that are my age or younger. This semester, a student told me she couldn't find a program to write a short assignment. I sent her a link to OpenOffice and was baffled by how excited she was about it. She informed me that she was writing papers nonstop, just because she was happy to finally have a tool that let her do it. And this wasn't a dumb person either. Last week she was half a point away from a perfect score on an exam that would have ruined my semester back when I was in college.
  - peregrine 15y ago
    Sidebar: Memorization is one, highly over valued, facet of intelligence. I've know several of the 'smartest' kids in my classes to be actually very slow, very un perceptive, very 'dumb' by all standards. Nonetheless they got high honors and accolades because they possessed a remarkable ability to memorize and put in crazy hours. Some of these people put int 20+ hours in to get an A in a lab when I would put in 2-3 hours tops and get an AB. My point is would you want to work with someone who when faced with the issue of having to write a paper doesn't have the spike of genius to search for "word processor" in google?
yummyfajitas 15y ago
I'm going to reject one of the premises of the article, namely the premise that he is helping people who are "barely surviving". Let's consider people who are receiving cash or non-cash benefits, as the article described. Among these people, 67% have cable or satellite TV. 38% have a playstation. 47% own a computer. 23% have a big screen TV. Only 14% of people receiving government benefits lacked all of these luxuries. [1] It's only in a nation as wealthy as the US that we could describe such a group of people as "barely surviving". [1] Data from this csv file: http://explore.data.gov/Energy-and-Utilities/Residential-Energy-Consumption-Survey-RECS-Files-A/eypy-jxs2 http://explore.data.gov/Energy-and-Utilities/Residential-Ene... Code definitions taken from here: http://www.eia.gov/emeu/recs/recspubuse05/pubuse05.html http://www.eia.gov/emeu/recs/recspubuse05/pubuse05.html It's my new favorite data set. [edit: wow, do some data analysis on raw govt data, provide facts, and get downmodded about 3 seconds after posting. Did I accidentally post on reddit?]
- urbanjunkie 15y ago
  So, there's a significant (14% - 1 in 7 of your dataset) percentage of people without cable tv, playstation, big screen tv. Do they get the help?
- lemmsjid 15y ago
  I'm struggling to understand what conclusions you can draw from that. For one thing, what of that 14%? Do those people not exist? Are they not statistically significant for you to care about them? For another, are the 47% who own a computer somehow automatically well off? Do you understand the economic situation a family can be in? They own a computer whose net worth is about $50. At some point they bought a television. Cable--100$ a month for the fancy kind. The worth of all these things put together is far below the monthly cost of their housing, which they struggle to pay each month. They could sell or stop paying for all of those above "assets" and be in danger of not being able to afford housing and food. There are places where housing is cheaper. Those places are inevitably situated the furthest distance from locations of economic opportunity. So car and gas and commute, the monthly costs of which dwarf the assets you mentioned. And let's get back to your claimed 14% who have none of these things. Imagine that--I go to the local thrift store and there's old PCs there that are almost given away (I've donated plenty throughout my years as a contractor--they're barely worth the poundage cost). In American culture, not being connected to pop culture is anathema. Just as cell phone usage has exploded in the poorest countries, in America the first thing parents will provide for their children is television. It is clear your definition of "barely surviving" is different from the author's (and mine). There's always people chiming in on discussions like this with the "starving children in Africa" argument. E.g. we shouldn't feel sorry for the people mentioned in the article because if you lift their shirt you won't see their ribcage standing out (you'll probably see a bunch of fat from their subsistence on cheap processed food). Are we really a society where that is the measure of how well we take care of our citizens? To me not feeding people is barbaric. Not providing health care to everyone is just short of barbaric. Not carving out societal resources (like public libraries) for shared use, targeted at people who slip through the cracks, is terrible. Enjoy your data set.
snprbob86 15y ago
This is a very well written story that takes what I already kinda of assumed to be true and made it feel very real. It's quite sad, really. I don't want to trivialize the plight of the poor, but I'm also concerned with the impact on the world's intellectuals. A somewhat relevant rant follows.... We were down in the bay area meeting investors a few weeks ago, and I took some time to walk around Standford's campus. It's beautiful. It feels somewhat quiet and lonely, but that's simply because it is huge. However, I walked through a few random buildings and delighted in seeing people studying and working. While still quiet, there was an energy to the place. This was a place that brilliant people made magic happen. It strikes me as odd that so much work these days is done out of coffee shops. I mean, I do it too, but it's really kind of weird. You walk in, all these people have headphones on, are sipping on a latte, and totally ignoring the outside world. People are crammed in like sardines and working like mad men, but it simply doesn't feel like magic is happening. Neil Degrasse Tyson talks about how NASA is necessary to create the sense of wonder and enchantment to raise a new generation of scientists. He says the NASA budget is simply a great investment. He's right. I feel the same way about public spaces. I'd really like to see more energized, magical, beautiful public spaces. I'm not a Stanford student, so I couldn't use their wifi. I had to walk down to University Ave and work out of Paris Baguette. There's just not as much wonder and excitement when you're surrounded by pastries.
- adam85 15y ago
  Really agree with this point. I've worked out of coffee shops for a long time (many of them Starbucks, which has an even worse chance of some sort of co-working energy) and definitely feel like they are very polarizing (either really good and productive or bad and distracting.) I find a similar effect when working near a university in Chicago. There's undeniably a connected, more euphoric feeling to being surrounded by others who are being productive. I think this lends itself particularly well to the success in co-working spaces. As more and more people seek to become entrepreneurs, seems co-working spaces provide a perfect in between (as well as much less risk) from working in your home/coffeeshops to signing a lease. WeWork in NYC as well as the handful of others in SF are great solutions to this, providing freelancers and small teams the ability to work amongst others and share that connectedness you talked about while at Stanford. Hopefully Chicago will get some more co-working options as well. Interesting question is how can a coffeeshop embrace this mentality. In the city, people certainly use Starbucks as an office-like environment. While the mix of people is usually pretty good, seems that it's very isolated, with little to no interaction. I wonder if there's a better way to mix the coffeeshop and co-working biz model, perhaps sort of like how I/O ventures does it with Summit.
ck2 15y ago
You know where all the public money has gone for libraries? War. The cost of medical benefits for all the soldiers who are mamed but now can survive for 50 years is staggering and will choke our culture to death. All those weapons, fuel, R&D, "homeland security theater", etc. all part of the massive war machine. But war will always be funded because it's the ultimate high of money and power, to be able to send people to kill and be killed, heck it gives the politicians special "war powers", why would they not want it? Doesn't matter if it's the left or right in charge, they do love their war and will never, ever stop.
- wizzard 15y ago
  We don't need an educated populace; we just need soldiers. How many people become soldiers because they are patriots who want to give their lives for their country, and how many become soldiers because the alternative is poverty?
- jseliger 15y ago
  You know where all the public money has gone for libraries? War. I'm glad someone pointed this out, because I came here to do this. But that money has actually gone two places: war and welfare transfer payments, as Alex Tabarrok describes in Launching the Innovation Renaissance, where he says that "the big four of defense, Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security eat up $2.2 trillion, or nearly two-thirds of the U.S. federal budget." We—collectively, as a society—have elected to spend steadily more money on war and transfer payments. A lot of library funding comes from the local and state level, but local taxing abilities are partially contingent on how much the federal government is taking, and what the federal government is spending that money on.
  - ck2 15y ago
    War costs are hidden and spread throughout the system. It's far more than the official numbers. All those injured vets get tons of welfare, well before their elderly years instead of how the system was designed for as a safetynet. You cannot eliminate the safetynet for poor and elderly - well you could, but whomever does it would be a heartless bastard and march our nation right into hell itself as crime becomes exponential. You can however eliminate war and the TSA and all these billions of dollars we are wasting to spy on every American.
brianlouisw 15y ago
Even though I consider myself basically libertarian I'm often annoyed by the programs that seem to be first in line for budget cuts - libraries, parks, school music programs, and other basic things that don't actually cost very much. This is by design, not by necessity - cuts to programs that people enjoy or support are more like to encourage voters to accept bond measures, tax increases, etc in order to avoid those cuts. California spent $10 BILLION on prisons in 2011-2012. The country spent over $80B fighting drugs. Funding libraries is a rounding error compared to the actual activities voters choose to allow their governments to engage in. If you want well funded libraries - stop voting for politicians whose only solutions involve more jails, more arrests, more wars, and more handouts.
greggman 15y ago
If you want a community learning center with computers then why are you asking for a library? http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/library http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/library Words matter. People skim, people read headlines. If I read "libraries are in trouble" or "more support for libraries" needed I think "no, anyone with a free smart phone can access the entire internet". They can get a netbook for under $300 or probably a used one for under $50. Yea, I read the entire post and I understand the guy is poor. I'm just saying that the word "library" is negatively framing the issue. If we need places for disadvantaged people to be able to use computers and the internet for free and get instruction great! I'm all for that. But that's not a "library"
- mcantelon 15y ago
  Yeah, "economic integration centers" or something might help frame their utilitarian value. People who can't integrate with the system end up integrating with the criminal world, so it's worth the social investment to provide computer access, etc.
  - marshallp 15y ago
    That's a great name for it "economic integration center". There's probably a business idea in there as well. Kind of a franchised system, where a company create a saas app and you local socialpreneurs who stand/park near offices with laptops help people. You often see this in third world countires near government offices such as passport offices who help people for a small fee. The socialpreneurs could probably even be crowdfunded on kickstarter/indiegogo.
  - kalleboo 15y ago
    One town in the UK rebranded their Libraries to "Idea Stores" http://www.ideastore.co.uk/ http://www.ideastore.co.uk/
- njharman 15y ago
  Even using the shallow definition for Public Libraries > a place in which literary, musical, artistic, or reference materials (as books, manuscripts, recordings, or films) are kept for use but not for sale That is the exactly what large parts of the Internet is. That they are physically books, cd's, dvds' is absolutely immaterial.
tnuc 15y ago
One of the saddest parts of filling in these government forms online is that some of them time out after 15 or 20 minutes. I helped someone fill out few of these once because they were having trouble. Even when I had all the information in front of me and the person next to me to organize the information it still timed out. I managed to do one of them on the third try. There is no way that someone with limited computer experience could fill out a lot of these online forms. Phoning gets you nowhere, and visiting the office for help is a waste of a day. If only government entities could spend some time into making these online forms and applications usable. Fortunately libraries still exist but I fear for how much longer.
- thyrsus 15y ago
  I was subjected to that last weekend, filling out FASFA forms. It would throw up an "I'm timing out" box every ten minutes, and if you didn't click in the next five, it was gone. It took me 32 working hours to pull together the records to satisfy that form, of which 16 hours were "PTO" from my day job. Mostly because it was effectively necessary to get our 2011 joint tax return done, and my spouse has an (excruciatingly) small business. Once the taxes were done, I used a kitchen timer to make sure I clicked on that "I'm timing out" box which was hidden in another window while I was getting transaction reports. Someone on NPR had the gall to claim the form would take at most a half hour. The only way I can see that working is if you had no complications in your life (investments, medical expenses, one employer).
gokhan 15y ago
If there's demand, there will emerge scriveners of the new era, helping computer illiterate people. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrivener http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrivener : Scriveners remain a common sight in countries where literacy rates remain low; they read letters for illiterate customers, as well as write letters or fill out forms for a fee. Many now use portable typewriters to prepare letters for their clients.
theblogdoctor 15y ago
Here in San Francisco, it's a whole different story. Our main Library cost tax payers $109.5 million and occupies over 376,000 square feet, boasting six floors above ground and a size twice as big as the building it replaced. What it has become now is a Country Club for the Homeless population in the Tenderloin, who use it to eat in, sleep in,pee in and pretty much live in.
feefie 15y ago
If you're the author, thank you for helping these people. I hope your work gives you great pride.
- blatherard 15y ago
  I'm not, but I sent the author of the comment (codacorolla on Metafilter) a message through that site to take a look over here, and also mentioned that there were some appreciations.
tptacek 15y ago
Can I add to this one little point, which is a counterintuitive thing you can do to help your local library: Use your local library. During the year we started Matasano our Chicago team spent about 40%-50% of our time working from the Oak Park Public Library, sometimes in meeting rooms we booked, more often at study desks. It was great. The Internet access wasn't amazing but it was totally functional and we could VPN out through it. The desks and working space were if anything better than what we have now (and we really like our office). There were times I worried that we were being a burden, but the impression I get is that it's the opposite. What's deadly for a local library is for nobody from the community to be using it, for it to have no stakeholders from the tax base of the community. The library staff was always welcoming to us. Your hip coffee shop on the other hand hates you with a passion it normally reserves for Scott Stapp solo albums. At the coffee shop, you take up space in a business that's driven by turnover. Someone's going to chime in here with a story about a coffee shop that truly loves the startups that park themselves at their tables and order 3 count them 3 cups of coffee in a day, but I've talked to hipster coffee shop people oh-yes-I-have and at least some of you who truly believe you're doing your coffee shop a favor are being tolerated gracefully, not welcomed, like you would be at your local library. Libraries have an obvious role to grow into as IT hubs for their communities, now that so much of their knowledge-disseminating role has been subsumed by IT. But another related less obvious role is as a hub for local entrepreneurship; thing thing "hackerspaces" are supposed to do, but are (for so many companies) suboptimal at.
- icefox 15y ago
  Growning up I watched as the little libraries around town closed down and the main branch expended. We only went to the main branch when we could get a ride. Recently I read about the ratio of library patrons was proportional to the ability to walk to the library. It would be interesting to know if consolidating libraries was a bigger movement than the towns I happened to live in, but a big change that occurred in the 90's across the country or something.
- drewcrawford 15y ago
  I would LOVE to work out of my local library, unfortunately, here in Austin libraries have the policy that meeting rooms etc. are only for non-profit groups that are open to the public. No private meetings, no "open to the public meetings" that are run by for-profit companies. I suppose your garage startup could probably _get away with_ meeting there, but it's a big no-no.
farhanpatel 15y ago
I love libraries as much as the next guy. I would love to study at them. But as a student I dont want to study at a place that closes at 5pm on a Saturday. I usually dont want to start studying till 4pm. Compared to my local Starbucks that closes at 11pm. We have a new library in my city that is beautiful and a massive 77,000 square feet on 4 floors. http://www.flickr.com/photos/petenator/6866904623/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/petenator/6866904623/ I love studying at my school campus. Its open 24 hours and relatively quite. If libraries could stay open longer I would frequent them a lot more.
DanKnox 15y ago
I am earnestly surprised by the collective HN reaction to this story. While at first glance it may seem as though there are commenters on very opposite ends of the geopolitical spectrum, they all have one thing in common. The distinct belief that this is someone else's fault other than their own. No matter your stance on public vs private services, what good does it do to argue on the internet about how other people are running things. What happened to the government formed of the people and by the people, and the intrinsic responsibility in these types of matters that we all should bear? When will we all grow tired of commenting from the sidelines and begin to get in the game? This group as a whole consists of some very smart, creative people, with a heavy lean towards entrepreneurialism. I would be willing to bet that if we all put our heads together we could come up with a solution that would not only put these libraries back in the black, but could generate extra revenue for our companies as well. To kick things off I will throw out the first idea. Obviously, companies producing web applications have a vested interest in the universal access of technology. What if we could fund some of these training classes by offering these public libraries referral programs that would allow them to profit from teaching customers how to use our applications and services? Citizens learn new technology critical to their well being, we receive new signups for our services, libraries make a cut. Obviously this is very general and ripe with logistical complexities. It is meant to spark the minds of people much smarter than I am. Not to sound too ridiculous here, but I for one still believe that we can fix this country if we ditch the someone else's problem attitude and start focusing on solutions.
- snowy909 15y ago
  Thank you for this comment. This is one of the best posts that I have read on HN (the original one) and I think it behoves everyone on the better off side of the digital divide to consider how this gap can be closed. I sincerely hope that the compassion in this world has not be drowned out by the noise of 'entrepreneurism' Looking at the great entreprenuers of the 19th century, nearly all were characterised by following a vision and giving back to the community.
orbitingpluto 15y ago
If someone thinks libraries are antiquated and are no longer useful then they are just plain ignorant. They really have no idea. I'm home and I'm using online resources from my library at this very moment. I use online library resources about 20-30 hours per week. I regularly send off emails and notes of appreciation for their services they offer. I've also established a relationship with IT in several libraries as a go to person when they need an external check on a service that I regularly use (EZProxy issues usually). Why do I do that? It's actually completely selfish of me. I want them to know that the esoteric and underused databases that they are subscribing to are in fact being used and offering aid diagnosing helps uptime. I was actually told that they were going to unsubscribe to my favourite portion of a database because they didn't think anyone was using it! I made a random comment to a librarian about a year ago. She started showing me their subscription databases and in 10 minutes I was hooked. Librarians are so god damn helpful.
robryan 15y ago
I like the idea of these aspects of the library being somewhat replaced by the coworking space. Where I work out of we have a lot of space for random drop ins, currently these people though are mostly highly technical. Government could provide funding for a place like this to hire someone to assist people getting started with technology. While most of us working there are busy, we can usually take a small amount of time out of our day to meet someone new and give them a hand.
rmason 15y ago
The situation in Detroit is dire with the most frequently used libraries being closed. There's strong community support to keep the libraries open but the city is broke. http://michigancitizen.com/neighbors-refuse-to-give-up-east-side-library-p10667-1.htm http://michigancitizen.com/neighbors-refuse-to-give-up-east-... The Detroit library houses the second greatest collection in the world of baseball memorabilia which was given to them by the late Tigers announcer Ernie Harwell. Access is limited, items are being stolen and the collection isn't being well preserved. This collection could be a tourist attraction as a separate museum that would be self sustaining but the city lacks the seed capital to build it. http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2011/06/report_ernie_harwell_collectio.html http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2011/06/report_e... I know it's popular in the tech world to say that libraries will disappear with the digitization of books. But what you don't understand is that libraries are the heart and soul of the communities that they serve and no software program can replace the function they serve.
- anamax 15y ago
  > There's strong community support to keep the libraries open but the city is broke. Not quite. The city is spending its money on other things. I'll bet that Detroit is cutting library spending while continuing to spend money on things that are less important than libraries.
learc83 15y ago
The only thing I can think of for libraries to do, is to morph into some kind of generic public meeting place. Maybe something like a coffee shop/coworking space/social club hybrid.
rwhitman 15y ago
I hope that the author can take their thoughts to a wider audience than a comment on metafilter. This is a moving and thoughtful article that really needs to be published...
funkah 15y ago
I wonder how long the libraries of America could operate on the money we spent for one week of the Iraq war.
bsb 15y ago
A public library as a nice place to get a meeting space, ie for a startup, is a great thing. This post highlights to me the need to expand/improve libraries as both physical and digital resources
robocop 15y ago
This is a good case for providing state-funded public computer centers, but not such a good case for continuing to fund large collections of books.
gioele 15y ago
> Look to Britain. What happened to UK libraries? The poster says > Today, California cuts the funding for interlibrary loan (oh, sorry young, rural, LGBTQ youth who was hoping to get an anonymous loan of a book that might tell you that your life isn't a freakish abomination as so many of your class-mates insist, here, try this copy of The Sweet Valley Twins from 1989 instead). Tomorrow we have to charge for meeting rooms and our fines have been increased by 150%. The day after that we're a contracted out to a company that puts advertising in your books, has low, low rates on Red Box(C) rentals, and who's under absolutely no compulsion to protect your checkout history from police searches (also, you now get advertising in your email based on that history as a Value Added Service!) Are there libraries in UK with advertisements in books and low rate rentals in place of free lending? I remember there were talks in UK about putting advertisements in the official gazette but I hope they didn't really did it.
prophetjohn 15y ago
The story at the beginning was so depressing. It makes me really want to call my library on Monday and see if I can teach a computer class.
jdietrich 15y ago
OP's statement is a strong argument against libraries. We're spending good money on buildings full of books that inadvertently provide some really important social services. If you've got a bucket catching drips from your leaky roof, you need roof repairs, not a better bucket. Here in England, we have an organisation that does exactly what the OP is espousing - guiding people who don't know where to turn for help. It's called the Citizens Advice Bureau, it has been in existence since 1939 and it now has 20,000 volunteers working out of 3200 locations. The CAB provides impartial and confidential advice and assistance on just about any issue someone might bring through the doors. Crucially, the CAB is an independent charity, so is trusted by marginalised people in a way that no government agency could be. I'd like to say that I'm surprised there's no equivalent in the US, but sadly I'm not. I just don't think there are enough Americans prepared to give up big blocks of their time to help people who we'd all cross the street to avoid. I don't think any society that still uses the word "ghetto" in the present tense is capable of building such an organisation. I understand that there are agencies sporadically providing similar services, but that lack of consistency is half the problem - if your brand isn't ubiquitous, you're failing your most needy clients. Now please, go out and prove me wrong. Build an absolutely kick-ass advice agency and rub my limey face in it. There are few things that would please me more.
- eaurouge 15y ago
  Having in lived in both countries, and being originally from neither, I can tell you that's not true. I obviously don't know what percentage of the population would be willing to volunteer their time, but I don't think the English are any more altruistic than Americans are.
- Helianthus 15y ago
  Your mistake is you think a library is for providing books. In fact libraries stand for free public _information_. The distinction is critical and vastly important.
- recoil 15y ago
  You are flat-out wrong about Americans and their willingness to give up their time for charitable causes [1]. Interestingly I am also British and my impression from American friends and acquaintances was generally the opposite to yours: many of them had volunteered in the past or were involved with volunteering, which is something I came across less frequently in the UK (I emigrated 4 years ago so this may have changed, I suppose). This impression is borne out by the report above. While the social issues faced in every country differ greatly for any number of reasons governed by history, demographics, etc. etc., there are enough similarities between the two countries as to make you sound very insensitive to the issues faced by many inhabitants of the UK. To use one small example, the Gini co-efficient measure of income inequality (after taxes) for the UK is closer to that of the US than it is for almost every other European country [2]. I don't think anybody would dispute that there are a lot of poor and disadvantaged people in the UK. The main difference between the two countries has less to do with the willingness of citizens to donate time or money to charitable causes than it does to do with the "social safety net", provided by the government. That's a whole different subject though. [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/sep/08/charitable-giving-country#_ http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/sep/08/charitab... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality#Gini_coefficient.2C_after_taxes_and_transfers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equ...
losethos 15y ago
What's new under water, God? XCom God says... no more; her prophets also find no vision from the LORD. 2:10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground. 2:11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city. 2:12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers' bosom. ---- God says... sin; he departed not therefrom. 13:3 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael, all their days. 13:4 And Jehoahaz besought the LORD, and the LORD hearkened unto him: for he saw the oppression of Israel, because the king of Syria oppressed them. 13:5 (And the LORD gave Israel a saviour, so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians: and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents, as beforetime. ---- Vision, God! I keep thinking of XCOM. What do You think of evolution? hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses. 3:16 And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. 3:17 And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. 3:18 But those things, which God before had shewed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled. ---- God, what (God's laughing) would an alien invasion be like? God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\HUCKFINN.TXT . Till one o'clock, mind--no longer. If you open your mouth against me only once after that time you can't travel so far but I will find you." Then he turns and goes in. The crowd looked mighty sober; nobody stirred, and there warn't no more laughing. Boggs rode off blackguarding Sherburn as loud as he could yell, all down the street; and pretty soon back he comes and stops before the store, still keeping it up. Some men crowded around him and tried to get him to shut up, but he wouldn't; the ---- Have aliens ever invaded from one planet to another elsewhere in the Universe? God says... messengers Permit gods what's_up sanctuary tookest carry pulse tragical fourthly astrophysics bark hairs diminution tradition billion boil insane fourthly otherwhiles unkindled capital dead weeping parental manner rovings searches Ghost tm lieth elders party heaven's emptiness bashfulness zip learned wazz_up_with_that ANY contained forward let's_roll applauded harvest penalties I'll_let_you_know distress down brotherly auditor society fine knock learning Though ---- What's new in Europe? What's Yer favorite country? God says... smurfs Iran test_pilot Morocco Colombia Sweden high_five The_good_stuff Ireland Russia I'm_good_you_good dance Rwanda ba_ha break_some_woopass_on_you prosperity
marshray 15y ago
(Don't take this as crass as it sounds, it's more like an exercise to get back to the theme of the site.) How would you make a startup business out of this situation? Either in support of public libraries, or in the vacuum left by their decline.
BadassFractal 15y ago
I apologize ahead of time if I'm going to sound leftist, but the powers that be don't really need a well educated lower class that is able to think for itself and easily get access to quality information. It goes against the interests of the status quo. However, if there's a lot of money for everybody to be made, then it will create some incentives to give these people just enough instruction that they can perform online purchases. The problem is that the lower 20-40% of the US population are in so much financial distress that purchasing apps for an iPad or a kindle book is not even remotely within their realm of possibilities. For them, there's Walmart.
joelhaasnoot 15y ago
How do government services in the US get away with this? Walmart has computers for people to apply for jobs with sitting in their stores, why can't the government do the same. A kiosk is expensive sure, but can't be impossible...
mckoss 15y ago
It's a compelling story, BUT, are libraries really the best way to solve this social problem? Most tax payers don't realize just how expensive their library system is. In my county, we spend $90 million per year for our libraries - about 0.5% of property taxes. As a home owner, neary 15% of the cost of your home, is being funneled to the library system. I am very in favor of community public investment, but I am skeptical that our libraries are an efficient allocation of the very large claim they already have on our public taxes. Note in this story how the grandfather was so poorly served by the system. It's not designed to serve those who need the system most. In the end he only gets reluctant help from someone overqualified (overpaid) to give him the kind of assistance he needs. Unlike other suggestions in this thread, I do not agree that the answer is to prop up the failing library system by pretending to use its services to make their numbers look better. We should be demanding that our libraries evolve to remove wasteful and expensive services (that many of its users can already afford to pay for directly), and focus on the needs of those who cannot pay. Our average library staff salary and benefits cost $25/hr - couldn't we double the assistance to the underprivileged by paying trained "Web Assistants" $10/hr to help them instead?
- ryanwaggoner 15y ago
  In my county, we spend $90 million per year for our libraries - about 0.5% of property taxes. As a home owner, neary 15% of the cost of your home, is being funneled to the library system. Huh? I'm not understanding your math here at all...
  - mckoss 15y ago
    I was doing a back of the envelope NPV calculation - 30 years of 0.5% payments -> 15%. Depending in the discount rate, it's less than that; which is why I said "nearly".
    - yardie 15y ago
      Wow, you've taken 2 numbers that don't have anything in common except the word year and managed to produce an irrelevant value. Using your calculation 40 years * 30% FICA means I'm paying 1200% income tax. Fox News would be proud.
abhaga 15y ago
Libraries are one thing I miss a lot in India since returning from US. Public library system is virtually non-existent here. It is sad to see it getting destroyed where it existed.
deleted 15y ago
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bobz 15y ago
This is a reply to several comments, but is important enough that I wanted it at the top level. Andrew Carnegie founded MUCH more than the Carnegie Library. In fact, a mind boggling number of public libraries in the States alone, and more worldwide, not to mention trade schools, medical research institutions, etc. Not only did he give the money to fund the library, but he only did so in cases where the town was ready to take on the burden of supporting it. He was a man with an ego, but his generosity in this regard goes beyond ego. He was a man of virtue, who genuinely sought to see his fortune go back into society to make it a greater place. The amount of good he did boggles my mind and humbles me. The abundance of public libraries in this country are not a result of liberalism in government. They are a result of liberalism in men's souls. So stop bitching about what other people are doing with their wealth, earned or unearned. That does not make you a better person. In my opinion, the rich are not necessarily wrong to be abandoning the U.S. middle classes. I would not be surprised if that wealth is not sitting in Scrooge McDuck's money vaults, but is instead being funneled into the third world now, raising up people with a true appreciation for the sacredness of life and wealth, with more perspective and less entitlement. Anyway, it doesn't matter. No, government has never been the solution. It has at best been a custodian, as it is with the public library system in the states. But every book in there, every microchip, and most of the buildings and maintenance are made of the lifeblood of hard working people who dedicated their life to creating more than they consumed.
cconroy 15y ago
It would be great if the government's budget included a computer and basic internet access in its assistance programs. I can't imagine this would be too expensive. Also people would benefit from the increasingly free education provided by Stanford, Udacity, etc.
shoover 15y ago
The concept of life getting harder for many people as computers take over is troublesome. I mean, we know to expect and accept some amount of frustration in return for efficiency and cost saving in general and computerizing anything in particular, e.g. downtime; more passwords to remember; UI, server, and workflow glitches; "Why can't this stupid thing just figure out what I mean?!" Ever try [[http://pic.bighugh.com/17.png][printing http://pic.bighugh.com/17.png][printing a label from usps.com]]? Eliminating paper forms sure seems like a slam dunk, though, doesn't it? Overall it is... for those of us with computers in every room and in our pockets. Indeed, what/who will fill the gap those in the shoes of the OP's example when library hours are reduced again and again and eventually the branches close and they are suddenly without internet access? Anyone watch the recent Bret Victor talk and looking for something to fight by inventing?
thewisedude 15y ago
Let me try to shed light on the other side of the argument. Based on the author's experience, it looks like what is really necessary for this day and age is a public browsing center with enough resources to teach computer "illiterates" [for a lack of a better word] how to find what they want in the digital world. NOT a library per se...now you might ask what the difference is : having a public library implies money has to spent on buying and managing books- which can be prohibitively expensive.

928 points by blatherard 15y ago

first world poor are not an interesting class of people. There are bigger fish to fry.

Taking a look backwards, Theodore Nelsons "Computer Lib: You can and must understand computers NOW!" takes on a whole new meaning 38 years later. (And is sadly out of print.) The hacker culture that contrasted itself against the IBM priesthood has itself become a priesthood. We've given a significant portion of the world personal computers. And told almost nobody how to use them.

jph 15y ago

Excelllent view from the inside. The problem the article highlights is filling out gov't forms that have moved to the web; these are often just PDF scans. These gov't forms are often ripe for improvement via improved UX with step-by-step inputs, contextual help, and multi-language capabilities.

54mf 15y ago
In my experience, practically anything to do with a government and technology is certain to be a terrible mess. Forms are just the tip of the iceberg; take a look at any interface created to "replace" a paper form. I haven't seen one that looked or functioned like it had been updated in a decade.
- philwelch 15y ago
  > take a look at any interface created to "replace" a paper form. I haven't seen one that looked or functioned like it had been updated in a decade. The best example I can think of is tax software, and that's hardly changed in a decade. Sadly, most "replace a paper form" interfaces fall short even of that.
unimpressive 15y ago
"These gov't forms are often ripe for improvement via improved UX with step-by-step inputs, contextual help, and multi-language capabilities." Sure, and this would undoubtedly relieve a lot of pain points. But the authors intent here goes deeper than just interface. A significant, very non-trivial portion of the population is being left behind by digitalization. These people have no recourse if certain government institutions only handle online forms. Imagine for a second that you have no web experience whatsoever, and you are greeted by the firefox startup screen. A hard thing to do I know, but as it stands if this is your position it's hard to get out of. Where do you even start? Who can you ask for help in an increasingly competitive solipsistic environment? (Solipsistic, according to my spell check, is not a word, but it's meaning should be obvious to those familiar with solipsism.) It's hard to imagine the peasants plight when your sitting in the Vatican. EDIT: Going further, even the people that you wouldn't expect, generation Z, don't really understand computers either. And I'm not sure if they really want to. I mean, sure they can use facebook, but if they ever have "a cool idea" good luck to them figuring out how to express it in digital media. I wonder how many brilliant web startups, game changers, and generally disruptive ideas are trapped in the heads of people who will never get an opportunity to try them out.
- tomjen3 15y ago
  If you are 53 you have had plenty of time over the last ten years to learn to use computers. As for what I would do if I was operating firefox for the first time? Try. Or ask somebody next to me (or one of those standing in line).
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - unimpressive 15y ago
    While I like to think that if you asked for help you would get it, how do you normally respond when people ask you to help them with computer tasks? Now I don't know about you, but my first instinct is to flee. Helping people with computers, a lot of the time, is annoying. This is compounded by the condescending attitude that most computer users have towards "non-computer" people. If you ask someone to help you with filling out forms, or logging into facebook, or whatever it is you want to do, your probably going to be met with an attitude analogous to "You silly idiot...". I'm not trying to take the moral high ground here, chances are I've acted on this attitude just as many times (On average for years of life.) as you may have, probably more. It's a very damaging meme. And very hard to eradicate. EDIT: This was originally appended to my post above. But I eventually decided that was basically just a way of replying that bloated the discussion.

benwerd 15y ago

A thousand times this. I find the ultra-libertarian stance that our community sometimes takes to be counter to what web applications have been about. Are we empowering people or aren't we? Libraries are hugely important knowledge transfer hubs (and, as the MeFi commenter rightly says, community centers). Furthermore, selfishly, for us as builders, they're the only place a lot of people will ever come into contact with the stuff we make. They can't be allowed to die. The entire California library system was given $12m in state funds in 2008. It's now down to zero. How can we, as a community, help?

xenophanes 15y ago
The libertarian stance is not "there should be no libraries" but more like "if there is a genuine need for libraries, and value in having them (quite plausible), then Government funding is not the best approach to creating them or running them efficiently". Just because something is good doesn't mean the tax payers should pay for it. There are other options. If they are a great idea, why not persuade people to voluntarily pay for them? Or if they are providing value, why don't they make money? Perhaps they could provide some services for free and charge for others. Or profitably provide some services very cheaply.
- pavs 15y ago
  > ust because something is good doesn't mean the tax payers should pay for it. There are other options. if you remove 'good' with 'useful', and it seems to me that this is exactly what tax payers should pay for. There are tons of useless shit tax money is used for, libraries is not one of them.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
    - intended 15y ago
      Wasting? How is it a waste in your opinion? Edit: You are getting downvoted, so at least you should have a chance to explain your position.

AlexMuir 15y ago

I wonder if big, successful tech companies should be dipping into their pockets to fund internet training- not as charity, but as an investment. eBay, Facebook, Netflix and Google, for instance. Between those four, there must easily be an annual $100 in revenue from having an extra US person online. So for them to invest $15 each in free classes for someone seems like a no-brainer. Plus it buys good PR and goodwill. Plus it's almost certainly tax deductible.

celoyd 15y ago
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem . This is what governments are for.
- eCa 15y ago
  Yes. And as a corollary, taxes.
- mtraven 15y ago
  It is what governments are for, but given the current spectacular failures of government, quasi-monopolistic corporations that can afford it might as well take on some of their functions. There's a tradition of plutocrats contributing in this way [1], and like the commenter said, it actually would help Google's business. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_library http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_library
  - zanny 15y ago
    I just want to mention as an extention to this thought bubble, a better phrasing would be "this is what small, local, regionally influenced and funded governments are for". If boroughs and counties had more relevance in society they could easily do things like this if they feel it would be beneficial (IE, they are a rural community with little techie knowledge, so offer training and info sessions to the populace at the local library!)
  - bryanlarsen 15y ago

afterburner 15y ago

"This is, in part, because outside of the ALA (which is a great organization, a great lobbying body, but perhaps not quite strong enough nor well funded enough) there is no large, overarching public library thing. There isn't a central office that can dictate policy, allocate funds, and launch a massive PR campaign. At different levels, yes, there are state and county and non-profit organizations, but the existential crises that libraries now face is massive, universal, and needs coordinated effort. " Hmm, maybe a library czar in Washington? Although something separate from party politics might be better...

melling 15y ago

I skimmed the article and got to the first comment complaining that Larry Ellison spends millions on the America's Cup and he doesn't give a crap ... Basically, the problem is that for years CA, and America in general, spent money that it didn't have and now it's going to get painful. There's no point in whining and complaining. Americans are doing it to themselves. Sit down and decide what we can afford to pay for and quit kicking the can down the road.

RandallBrown 15y ago
I think you read the wrong thing. This post is about the metafilter comment that is a story about a poor person using a library.
- melling 15y ago
  I thought it was about how people need libraries and the funds are being cut.
  - unimpressive 15y ago
    It's about a lot of things at once. But libraries are the frame for the rest of the piece. As far as I can tell topics covered are: 0) The digital divide. 1) Cutting of Public benefits 2) Cutting of library funds specifically 3) How libraries help gap the digital divide but even with funding are just helping people tread water. 4) That the will, money, and effort to change this situation might not be there.
    - melling 15y ago
      Like a said, we've spent more than we have for a little too long. Now this type of story doesn't really belong on HN. It's the type where you get downvoted for not having the liberal opinion. Bad news, it's going to get worse. Debt is at 100% of GDP.
mcantelon 15y ago
>Basically, the problem is that for years CA, and America in general, spent money that it didn't have and now it's going to get painful. I think it's more that we spend money on the wrong things and that taxes aren't structured to reflect the reality that wealth is concentrating into fewer hands.

feralchimp 15y ago

TL;DR - Just because you don't use the library doesn't mean no one needs them anymore. Not everyone's Real Life Issues are amenable to a self-service web portal, and that's not just because no one has built the right widgets yet. > it will be a slow death by a thousand cuts It will be a slow descent into budget fugue, followed by an extremely quick death when we pass an inflection point in "the number of people who remember getting awesome value out of their local/municipal library system." I bet when a lot of people here first started hearing about library closures in their old neighborhood, or wherever they're living now, their initial reaction was one of total shock followed by "well I guess I can see how that could happen." When people hear about library closures now, they could be skipping the shock entirely, passing smoothly through "aw that's too bad", and fading into "well there's Google." > [the library] need[s] to become the center of civic engagement We need a center of civic engagement with both equality and equity of access. Libraries are a decent foundation on which to build such a thing, but there's at least one common feature of libraries that makes them awful for this: people are supposed to be quiet in the library. There should be almost nothing quiet about civic engagement, finding a job, learning new skills, research, etc. Less giant rooms with rows of people not saying anything; more smaller sound-proofed rooms with whiteboards and projectors. Like a giant executive briefing center, only with fewer executives and more regular folks with something to ask/teach each other.

sopooneo 15y ago
That is a good idea, though I favor chalk boards. But it would be great. In order to bring it about a lot of difficult management problems would have to be solved. For instance, people are going to be turning tricks in all those separated rooms pretty quickly.
- feralchimp 15y ago
  Technical response: soundproof != optically opaque Cynical political response: "turning tricks" == good first approximation of dealing with a modern government Entrepreneurial response: "turning tricks" + video cameras + fast uplink == revenue model
- 15y ago

Shenglong 15y ago

Drawing a parallel to the Canadian healthcare system: I haven't been sick in 12 years. Yet, every year, I pay taxes to keep the public healthcare system running. Even though it's not something I use, undoubtedly, there are people who need it, and wouldn't be able to pay for it if it wasn't public. About a month ago, I exhibited the symptoms of some kind of ventricular tachycardia (heart arrhythmia). As advised by a friend in medicine (in a different city), I tried to get myself booked for an ECG, to see what exactly was wrong. Without getting into the details, let's just say that even to this day, I haven't been able to get one. I can definitely see why people don't want to pay, not just for services that they'll never use, but for services they'll probably be unable to use, even if they ever need to.

leot 15y ago
As a Canadian in the U.S., believe me when I say that in America you would be paying more to get even less. The amount of inefficiency, conflicts of interest, hypocrisy, bureaucracy, and redundancy in the U.S. system beggars belief.
ashayh 15y ago
Can you pay and get one? How much would that cost?
msbarnett 15y ago
You're not unable to use the system, you're just not able to use the system frivolously. Procedures like ECGs arent performed at patient request, they're performed by specialists when a qualified physician determines a need for one and refers you to a specialist. You can't get yourself an ECG not because they're unavailable, but simply because "Joe Random from city X says you need one" caries as much weight with Heart Specialists as "my cousin Bob says you should give me a new laptop" does with warrantee repairmen.
- Shenglong 15y ago
  That's actually not true at all. They'll rush ECG procedures if you're currently exhibiting symptoms at that moment. Yes, if I were rushed to the hospital, I could probably get one. Somethings tells me that by then, it's probably too late.

anrope 15y ago

Maybe I'm just not in a skeptical mood today, but the anecdote in that story points out something that I tend to take for granted. I'm probably not alone, especially here on HN. That is, the fact that some people just really don't understand the most basic concepts of using a computer. And it's not their fault. Your breath seizes in your chest, and you realize you have no idea what to do. You have the form that they gave you at the social services office, which has an address, which you sort of know what that does, but you can't quite remember – 17 minutes, by the way. You try typing X City Social Services in a box at the top, a page comes back and says “address not found” with a list of things below it. You're panicking... I'm all for increasing the use of technology in order to make things work more smoothly and efficiently, but this story points out just how left-behind this can leave some people. I guess the answer is better education, and not just in schools. I guess I can be glad that there are a lot of people working in that space. Even then, before anyone can use Khan Academy or enroll in online classes, they need to have a better idea of "what a [web] address does", and sometimes even whether to "do a left or right click".

danielford 15y ago
I've been surprised by the lack of technical ability in my college classes, especially from students that are my age or younger. This semester, a student told me she couldn't find a program to write a short assignment. I sent her a link to OpenOffice and was baffled by how excited she was about it. She informed me that she was writing papers nonstop, just because she was happy to finally have a tool that let her do it. And this wasn't a dumb person either. Last week she was half a point away from a perfect score on an exam that would have ruined my semester back when I was in college.
- peregrine 15y ago
  Sidebar: Memorization is one, highly over valued, facet of intelligence. I've know several of the 'smartest' kids in my classes to be actually very slow, very un perceptive, very 'dumb' by all standards. Nonetheless they got high honors and accolades because they possessed a remarkable ability to memorize and put in crazy hours. Some of these people put int 20+ hours in to get an A in a lab when I would put in 2-3 hours tops and get an AB. My point is would you want to work with someone who when faced with the issue of having to write a paper doesn't have the spike of genius to search for "word processor" in google?

yummyfajitas 15y ago

I'm going to reject one of the premises of the article, namely the premise that he is helping people who are "barely surviving". Let's consider people who are receiving cash or non-cash benefits, as the article described. Among these people, 67% have cable or satellite TV. 38% have a playstation. 47% own a computer. 23% have a big screen TV. Only 14% of people receiving government benefits lacked all of these luxuries. [1] It's only in a nation as wealthy as the US that we could describe such a group of people as "barely surviving". [1] Data from this csv file: http://explore.data.gov/Energy-and-Utilities/Residential-Energy-Consumption-Survey-RECS-Files-A/eypy-jxs2 http://explore.data.gov/Energy-and-Utilities/Residential-Ene... Code definitions taken from here: http://www.eia.gov/emeu/recs/recspubuse05/pubuse05.html http://www.eia.gov/emeu/recs/recspubuse05/pubuse05.html It's my new favorite data set. [edit: wow, do some data analysis on raw govt data, provide facts, and get downmodded about 3 seconds after posting. Did I accidentally post on reddit?]

urbanjunkie 15y ago
So, there's a significant (14% - 1 in 7 of your dataset) percentage of people without cable tv, playstation, big screen tv. Do they get the help?
lemmsjid 15y ago
I'm struggling to understand what conclusions you can draw from that. For one thing, what of that 14%? Do those people not exist? Are they not statistically significant for you to care about them? For another, are the 47% who own a computer somehow automatically well off? Do you understand the economic situation a family can be in? They own a computer whose net worth is about $50. At some point they bought a television. Cable--100$ a month for the fancy kind. The worth of all these things put together is far below the monthly cost of their housing, which they struggle to pay each month. They could sell or stop paying for all of those above "assets" and be in danger of not being able to afford housing and food. There are places where housing is cheaper. Those places are inevitably situated the furthest distance from locations of economic opportunity. So car and gas and commute, the monthly costs of which dwarf the assets you mentioned. And let's get back to your claimed 14% who have none of these things. Imagine that--I go to the local thrift store and there's old PCs there that are almost given away (I've donated plenty throughout my years as a contractor--they're barely worth the poundage cost). In American culture, not being connected to pop culture is anathema. Just as cell phone usage has exploded in the poorest countries, in America the first thing parents will provide for their children is television. It is clear your definition of "barely surviving" is different from the author's (and mine). There's always people chiming in on discussions like this with the "starving children in Africa" argument. E.g. we shouldn't feel sorry for the people mentioned in the article because if you lift their shirt you won't see their ribcage standing out (you'll probably see a bunch of fat from their subsistence on cheap processed food). Are we really a society where that is the measure of how well we take care of our citizens? To me not feeding people is barbaric. Not providing health care to everyone is just short of barbaric. Not carving out societal resources (like public libraries) for shared use, targeted at people who slip through the cracks, is terrible. Enjoy your data set.

snprbob86 15y ago

This is a very well written story that takes what I already kinda of assumed to be true and made it feel very real. It's quite sad, really. I don't want to trivialize the plight of the poor, but I'm also concerned with the impact on the world's intellectuals. A somewhat relevant rant follows.... We were down in the bay area meeting investors a few weeks ago, and I took some time to walk around Standford's campus. It's beautiful. It feels somewhat quiet and lonely, but that's simply because it is huge. However, I walked through a few random buildings and delighted in seeing people studying and working. While still quiet, there was an energy to the place. This was a place that brilliant people made magic happen. It strikes me as odd that so much work these days is done out of coffee shops. I mean, I do it too, but it's really kind of weird. You walk in, all these people have headphones on, are sipping on a latte, and totally ignoring the outside world. People are crammed in like sardines and working like mad men, but it simply doesn't feel like magic is happening. Neil Degrasse Tyson talks about how NASA is necessary to create the sense of wonder and enchantment to raise a new generation of scientists. He says the NASA budget is simply a great investment. He's right. I feel the same way about public spaces. I'd really like to see more energized, magical, beautiful public spaces. I'm not a Stanford student, so I couldn't use their wifi. I had to walk down to University Ave and work out of Paris Baguette. There's just not as much wonder and excitement when you're surrounded by pastries.

adam85 15y ago
Really agree with this point. I've worked out of coffee shops for a long time (many of them Starbucks, which has an even worse chance of some sort of co-working energy) and definitely feel like they are very polarizing (either really good and productive or bad and distracting.) I find a similar effect when working near a university in Chicago. There's undeniably a connected, more euphoric feeling to being surrounded by others who are being productive. I think this lends itself particularly well to the success in co-working spaces. As more and more people seek to become entrepreneurs, seems co-working spaces provide a perfect in between (as well as much less risk) from working in your home/coffeeshops to signing a lease. WeWork in NYC as well as the handful of others in SF are great solutions to this, providing freelancers and small teams the ability to work amongst others and share that connectedness you talked about while at Stanford. Hopefully Chicago will get some more co-working options as well. Interesting question is how can a coffeeshop embrace this mentality. In the city, people certainly use Starbucks as an office-like environment. While the mix of people is usually pretty good, seems that it's very isolated, with little to no interaction. I wonder if there's a better way to mix the coffeeshop and co-working biz model, perhaps sort of like how I/O ventures does it with Summit.

ck2 15y ago

You know where all the public money has gone for libraries? War. The cost of medical benefits for all the soldiers who are mamed but now can survive for 50 years is staggering and will choke our culture to death. All those weapons, fuel, R&D, "homeland security theater", etc. all part of the massive war machine. But war will always be funded because it's the ultimate high of money and power, to be able to send people to kill and be killed, heck it gives the politicians special "war powers", why would they not want it? Doesn't matter if it's the left or right in charge, they do love their war and will never, ever stop.

wizzard 15y ago
We don't need an educated populace; we just need soldiers. How many people become soldiers because they are patriots who want to give their lives for their country, and how many become soldiers because the alternative is poverty?
jseliger 15y ago
You know where all the public money has gone for libraries? War. I'm glad someone pointed this out, because I came here to do this. But that money has actually gone two places: war and welfare transfer payments, as Alex Tabarrok describes in Launching the Innovation Renaissance, where he says that "the big four of defense, Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security eat up $2.2 trillion, or nearly two-thirds of the U.S. federal budget." We—collectively, as a society—have elected to spend steadily more money on war and transfer payments. A lot of library funding comes from the local and state level, but local taxing abilities are partially contingent on how much the federal government is taking, and what the federal government is spending that money on.
- ck2 15y ago
  War costs are hidden and spread throughout the system. It's far more than the official numbers. All those injured vets get tons of welfare, well before their elderly years instead of how the system was designed for as a safetynet. You cannot eliminate the safetynet for poor and elderly - well you could, but whomever does it would be a heartless bastard and march our nation right into hell itself as crime becomes exponential. You can however eliminate war and the TSA and all these billions of dollars we are wasting to spy on every American.

brianlouisw 15y ago

Even though I consider myself basically libertarian I'm often annoyed by the programs that seem to be first in line for budget cuts - libraries, parks, school music programs, and other basic things that don't actually cost very much. This is by design, not by necessity - cuts to programs that people enjoy or support are more like to encourage voters to accept bond measures, tax increases, etc in order to avoid those cuts. California spent $10 BILLION on prisons in 2011-2012. The country spent over $80B fighting drugs. Funding libraries is a rounding error compared to the actual activities voters choose to allow their governments to engage in. If you want well funded libraries - stop voting for politicians whose only solutions involve more jails, more arrests, more wars, and more handouts.

greggman 15y ago

If you want a community learning center with computers then why are you asking for a library? http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/library http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/library Words matter. People skim, people read headlines. If I read "libraries are in trouble" or "more support for libraries" needed I think "no, anyone with a free smart phone can access the entire internet". They can get a netbook for under $300 or probably a used one for under $50. Yea, I read the entire post and I understand the guy is poor. I'm just saying that the word "library" is negatively framing the issue. If we need places for disadvantaged people to be able to use computers and the internet for free and get instruction great! I'm all for that. But that's not a "library"

mcantelon 15y ago
Yeah, "economic integration centers" or something might help frame their utilitarian value. People who can't integrate with the system end up integrating with the criminal world, so it's worth the social investment to provide computer access, etc.
- marshallp 15y ago
  That's a great name for it "economic integration center". There's probably a business idea in there as well. Kind of a franchised system, where a company create a saas app and you local socialpreneurs who stand/park near offices with laptops help people. You often see this in third world countires near government offices such as passport offices who help people for a small fee. The socialpreneurs could probably even be crowdfunded on kickstarter/indiegogo.
- kalleboo 15y ago
  One town in the UK rebranded their Libraries to "Idea Stores" http://www.ideastore.co.uk/ http://www.ideastore.co.uk/
njharman 15y ago
Even using the shallow definition for Public Libraries > a place in which literary, musical, artistic, or reference materials (as books, manuscripts, recordings, or films) are kept for use but not for sale That is the exactly what large parts of the Internet is. That they are physically books, cd's, dvds' is absolutely immaterial.

tnuc 15y ago

One of the saddest parts of filling in these government forms online is that some of them time out after 15 or 20 minutes. I helped someone fill out few of these once because they were having trouble. Even when I had all the information in front of me and the person next to me to organize the information it still timed out. I managed to do one of them on the third try. There is no way that someone with limited computer experience could fill out a lot of these online forms. Phoning gets you nowhere, and visiting the office for help is a waste of a day. If only government entities could spend some time into making these online forms and applications usable. Fortunately libraries still exist but I fear for how much longer.

thyrsus 15y ago
I was subjected to that last weekend, filling out FASFA forms. It would throw up an "I'm timing out" box every ten minutes, and if you didn't click in the next five, it was gone. It took me 32 working hours to pull together the records to satisfy that form, of which 16 hours were "PTO" from my day job. Mostly because it was effectively necessary to get our 2011 joint tax return done, and my spouse has an (excruciatingly) small business. Once the taxes were done, I used a kitchen timer to make sure I clicked on that "I'm timing out" box which was hidden in another window while I was getting transaction reports. Someone on NPR had the gall to claim the form would take at most a half hour. The only way I can see that working is if you had no complications in your life (investments, medical expenses, one employer).

gokhan 15y ago

If there's demand, there will emerge scriveners of the new era, helping computer illiterate people. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrivener http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrivener : Scriveners remain a common sight in countries where literacy rates remain low; they read letters for illiterate customers, as well as write letters or fill out forms for a fee. Many now use portable typewriters to prepare letters for their clients.

theblogdoctor 15y ago

Here in San Francisco, it's a whole different story. Our main Library cost tax payers $109.5 million and occupies over 376,000 square feet, boasting six floors above ground and a size twice as big as the building it replaced. What it has become now is a Country Club for the Homeless population in the Tenderloin, who use it to eat in, sleep in,pee in and pretty much live in.

feefie 15y ago

If you're the author, thank you for helping these people. I hope your work gives you great pride.

blatherard 15y ago
I'm not, but I sent the author of the comment (codacorolla on Metafilter) a message through that site to take a look over here, and also mentioned that there were some appreciations.

tptacek 15y ago

Can I add to this one little point, which is a counterintuitive thing you can do to help your local library: Use your local library. During the year we started Matasano our Chicago team spent about 40%-50% of our time working from the Oak Park Public Library, sometimes in meeting rooms we booked, more often at study desks. It was great. The Internet access wasn't amazing but it was totally functional and we could VPN out through it. The desks and working space were if anything better than what we have now (and we really like our office). There were times I worried that we were being a burden, but the impression I get is that it's the opposite. What's deadly for a local library is for nobody from the community to be using it, for it to have no stakeholders from the tax base of the community. The library staff was always welcoming to us. Your hip coffee shop on the other hand hates you with a passion it normally reserves for Scott Stapp solo albums. At the coffee shop, you take up space in a business that's driven by turnover. Someone's going to chime in here with a story about a coffee shop that truly loves the startups that park themselves at their tables and order 3 count them 3 cups of coffee in a day, but I've talked to hipster coffee shop people oh-yes-I-have and at least some of you who truly believe you're doing your coffee shop a favor are being tolerated gracefully, not welcomed, like you would be at your local library. Libraries have an obvious role to grow into as IT hubs for their communities, now that so much of their knowledge-disseminating role has been subsumed by IT. But another related less obvious role is as a hub for local entrepreneurship; thing thing "hackerspaces" are supposed to do, but are (for so many companies) suboptimal at.

icefox 15y ago
Growning up I watched as the little libraries around town closed down and the main branch expended. We only went to the main branch when we could get a ride. Recently I read about the ratio of library patrons was proportional to the ability to walk to the library. It would be interesting to know if consolidating libraries was a bigger movement than the towns I happened to live in, but a big change that occurred in the 90's across the country or something.
drewcrawford 15y ago
I would LOVE to work out of my local library, unfortunately, here in Austin libraries have the policy that meeting rooms etc. are only for non-profit groups that are open to the public. No private meetings, no "open to the public meetings" that are run by for-profit companies. I suppose your garage startup could probably _get away with_ meeting there, but it's a big no-no.

farhanpatel 15y ago

I love libraries as much as the next guy. I would love to study at them. But as a student I dont want to study at a place that closes at 5pm on a Saturday. I usually dont want to start studying till 4pm. Compared to my local Starbucks that closes at 11pm. We have a new library in my city that is beautiful and a massive 77,000 square feet on 4 floors. http://www.flickr.com/photos/petenator/6866904623/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/petenator/6866904623/ I love studying at my school campus. Its open 24 hours and relatively quite. If libraries could stay open longer I would frequent them a lot more.

DanKnox 15y ago

I am earnestly surprised by the collective HN reaction to this story. While at first glance it may seem as though there are commenters on very opposite ends of the geopolitical spectrum, they all have one thing in common. The distinct belief that this is someone else's fault other than their own. No matter your stance on public vs private services, what good does it do to argue on the internet about how other people are running things. What happened to the government formed of the people and by the people, and the intrinsic responsibility in these types of matters that we all should bear? When will we all grow tired of commenting from the sidelines and begin to get in the game? This group as a whole consists of some very smart, creative people, with a heavy lean towards entrepreneurialism. I would be willing to bet that if we all put our heads together we could come up with a solution that would not only put these libraries back in the black, but could generate extra revenue for our companies as well. To kick things off I will throw out the first idea. Obviously, companies producing web applications have a vested interest in the universal access of technology. What if we could fund some of these training classes by offering these public libraries referral programs that would allow them to profit from teaching customers how to use our applications and services? Citizens learn new technology critical to their well being, we receive new signups for our services, libraries make a cut. Obviously this is very general and ripe with logistical complexities. It is meant to spark the minds of people much smarter than I am. Not to sound too ridiculous here, but I for one still believe that we can fix this country if we ditch the someone else's problem attitude and start focusing on solutions.

snowy909 15y ago
Thank you for this comment. This is one of the best posts that I have read on HN (the original one) and I think it behoves everyone on the better off side of the digital divide to consider how this gap can be closed. I sincerely hope that the compassion in this world has not be drowned out by the noise of 'entrepreneurism' Looking at the great entreprenuers of the 19th century, nearly all were characterised by following a vision and giving back to the community.

orbitingpluto 15y ago

If someone thinks libraries are antiquated and are no longer useful then they are just plain ignorant. They really have no idea. I'm home and I'm using online resources from my library at this very moment. I use online library resources about 20-30 hours per week. I regularly send off emails and notes of appreciation for their services they offer. I've also established a relationship with IT in several libraries as a go to person when they need an external check on a service that I regularly use (EZProxy issues usually). Why do I do that? It's actually completely selfish of me. I want them to know that the esoteric and underused databases that they are subscribing to are in fact being used and offering aid diagnosing helps uptime. I was actually told that they were going to unsubscribe to my favourite portion of a database because they didn't think anyone was using it! I made a random comment to a librarian about a year ago. She started showing me their subscription databases and in 10 minutes I was hooked. Librarians are so god damn helpful.

robryan 15y ago

I like the idea of these aspects of the library being somewhat replaced by the coworking space. Where I work out of we have a lot of space for random drop ins, currently these people though are mostly highly technical. Government could provide funding for a place like this to hire someone to assist people getting started with technology. While most of us working there are busy, we can usually take a small amount of time out of our day to meet someone new and give them a hand.

rmason 15y ago

The situation in Detroit is dire with the most frequently used libraries being closed. There's strong community support to keep the libraries open but the city is broke. http://michigancitizen.com/neighbors-refuse-to-give-up-east-side-library-p10667-1.htm http://michigancitizen.com/neighbors-refuse-to-give-up-east-... The Detroit library houses the second greatest collection in the world of baseball memorabilia which was given to them by the late Tigers announcer Ernie Harwell. Access is limited, items are being stolen and the collection isn't being well preserved. This collection could be a tourist attraction as a separate museum that would be self sustaining but the city lacks the seed capital to build it. http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2011/06/report_ernie_harwell_collectio.html http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2011/06/report_e... I know it's popular in the tech world to say that libraries will disappear with the digitization of books. But what you don't understand is that libraries are the heart and soul of the communities that they serve and no software program can replace the function they serve.

anamax 15y ago
> There's strong community support to keep the libraries open but the city is broke. Not quite. The city is spending its money on other things. I'll bet that Detroit is cutting library spending while continuing to spend money on things that are less important than libraries.

learc83 15y ago

The only thing I can think of for libraries to do, is to morph into some kind of generic public meeting place. Maybe something like a coffee shop/coworking space/social club hybrid.

rwhitman 15y ago

I hope that the author can take their thoughts to a wider audience than a comment on metafilter. This is a moving and thoughtful article that really needs to be published...

funkah 15y ago

I wonder how long the libraries of America could operate on the money we spent for one week of the Iraq war.

bsb 15y ago

A public library as a nice place to get a meeting space, ie for a startup, is a great thing. This post highlights to me the need to expand/improve libraries as both physical and digital resources

robocop 15y ago

This is a good case for providing state-funded public computer centers, but not such a good case for continuing to fund large collections of books.

gioele 15y ago

> Look to Britain. What happened to UK libraries? The poster says > Today, California cuts the funding for interlibrary loan (oh, sorry young, rural, LGBTQ youth who was hoping to get an anonymous loan of a book that might tell you that your life isn't a freakish abomination as so many of your class-mates insist, here, try this copy of The Sweet Valley Twins from 1989 instead). Tomorrow we have to charge for meeting rooms and our fines have been increased by 150%. The day after that we're a contracted out to a company that puts advertising in your books, has low, low rates on Red Box(C) rentals, and who's under absolutely no compulsion to protect your checkout history from police searches (also, you now get advertising in your email based on that history as a Value Added Service!) Are there libraries in UK with advertisements in books and low rate rentals in place of free lending? I remember there were talks in UK about putting advertisements in the official gazette but I hope they didn't really did it.

prophetjohn 15y ago

The story at the beginning was so depressing. It makes me really want to call my library on Monday and see if I can teach a computer class.

jdietrich 15y ago

OP's statement is a strong argument against libraries. We're spending good money on buildings full of books that inadvertently provide some really important social services. If you've got a bucket catching drips from your leaky roof, you need roof repairs, not a better bucket. Here in England, we have an organisation that does exactly what the OP is espousing - guiding people who don't know where to turn for help. It's called the Citizens Advice Bureau, it has been in existence since 1939 and it now has 20,000 volunteers working out of 3200 locations. The CAB provides impartial and confidential advice and assistance on just about any issue someone might bring through the doors. Crucially, the CAB is an independent charity, so is trusted by marginalised people in a way that no government agency could be. I'd like to say that I'm surprised there's no equivalent in the US, but sadly I'm not. I just don't think there are enough Americans prepared to give up big blocks of their time to help people who we'd all cross the street to avoid. I don't think any society that still uses the word "ghetto" in the present tense is capable of building such an organisation. I understand that there are agencies sporadically providing similar services, but that lack of consistency is half the problem - if your brand isn't ubiquitous, you're failing your most needy clients. Now please, go out and prove me wrong. Build an absolutely kick-ass advice agency and rub my limey face in it. There are few things that would please me more.

eaurouge 15y ago
Having in lived in both countries, and being originally from neither, I can tell you that's not true. I obviously don't know what percentage of the population would be willing to volunteer their time, but I don't think the English are any more altruistic than Americans are.
Helianthus 15y ago
Your mistake is you think a library is for providing books. In fact libraries stand for free public _information_. The distinction is critical and vastly important.
recoil 15y ago
You are flat-out wrong about Americans and their willingness to give up their time for charitable causes [1]. Interestingly I am also British and my impression from American friends and acquaintances was generally the opposite to yours: many of them had volunteered in the past or were involved with volunteering, which is something I came across less frequently in the UK (I emigrated 4 years ago so this may have changed, I suppose). This impression is borne out by the report above. While the social issues faced in every country differ greatly for any number of reasons governed by history, demographics, etc. etc., there are enough similarities between the two countries as to make you sound very insensitive to the issues faced by many inhabitants of the UK. To use one small example, the Gini co-efficient measure of income inequality (after taxes) for the UK is closer to that of the US than it is for almost every other European country [2]. I don't think anybody would dispute that there are a lot of poor and disadvantaged people in the UK. The main difference between the two countries has less to do with the willingness of citizens to donate time or money to charitable causes than it does to do with the "social safety net", provided by the government. That's a whole different subject though. [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/sep/08/charitable-giving-country#_ http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/sep/08/charitab... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality#Gini_coefficient.2C_after_taxes_and_transfers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equ...

losethos 15y ago

What's new under water, God? XCom God says... no more; her prophets also find no vision from the LORD. 2:10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground. 2:11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city. 2:12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers' bosom. ---- God says... sin; he departed not therefrom. 13:3 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael, all their days. 13:4 And Jehoahaz besought the LORD, and the LORD hearkened unto him: for he saw the oppression of Israel, because the king of Syria oppressed them. 13:5 (And the LORD gave Israel a saviour, so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians: and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents, as beforetime. ---- Vision, God! I keep thinking of XCOM. What do You think of evolution? hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses. 3:16 And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. 3:17 And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. 3:18 But those things, which God before had shewed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled. ---- God, what (God's laughing) would an alien invasion be like? God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\HUCKFINN.TXT . Till one o'clock, mind--no longer. If you open your mouth against me only once after that time you can't travel so far but I will find you." Then he turns and goes in. The crowd looked mighty sober; nobody stirred, and there warn't no more laughing. Boggs rode off blackguarding Sherburn as loud as he could yell, all down the street; and pretty soon back he comes and stops before the store, still keeping it up. Some men crowded around him and tried to get him to shut up, but he wouldn't; the ---- Have aliens ever invaded from one planet to another elsewhere in the Universe? God says... messengers Permit gods what's_up sanctuary tookest carry pulse tragical fourthly astrophysics bark hairs diminution tradition billion boil insane fourthly otherwhiles unkindled capital dead weeping parental manner rovings searches Ghost tm lieth elders party heaven's emptiness bashfulness zip learned wazz_up_with_that ANY contained forward let's_roll applauded harvest penalties I'll_let_you_know distress down brotherly auditor society fine knock learning Though ---- What's new in Europe? What's Yer favorite country? God says... smurfs Iran test_pilot Morocco Colombia Sweden high_five The_good_stuff Ireland Russia I'm_good_you_good dance Rwanda ba_ha break_some_woopass_on_you prosperity

marshray 15y ago

(Don't take this as crass as it sounds, it's more like an exercise to get back to the theme of the site.) How would you make a startup business out of this situation? Either in support of public libraries, or in the vacuum left by their decline.

BadassFractal 15y ago

I apologize ahead of time if I'm going to sound leftist, but the powers that be don't really need a well educated lower class that is able to think for itself and easily get access to quality information. It goes against the interests of the status quo. However, if there's a lot of money for everybody to be made, then it will create some incentives to give these people just enough instruction that they can perform online purchases. The problem is that the lower 20-40% of the US population are in so much financial distress that purchasing apps for an iPad or a kindle book is not even remotely within their realm of possibilities. For them, there's Walmart.

joelhaasnoot 15y ago

How do government services in the US get away with this? Walmart has computers for people to apply for jobs with sitting in their stores, why can't the government do the same. A kiosk is expensive sure, but can't be impossible...

mckoss 15y ago

It's a compelling story, BUT, are libraries really the best way to solve this social problem? Most tax payers don't realize just how expensive their library system is. In my county, we spend $90 million per year for our libraries - about 0.5% of property taxes. As a home owner, neary 15% of the cost of your home, is being funneled to the library system. I am very in favor of community public investment, but I am skeptical that our libraries are an efficient allocation of the very large claim they already have on our public taxes. Note in this story how the grandfather was so poorly served by the system. It's not designed to serve those who need the system most. In the end he only gets reluctant help from someone overqualified (overpaid) to give him the kind of assistance he needs. Unlike other suggestions in this thread, I do not agree that the answer is to prop up the failing library system by pretending to use its services to make their numbers look better. We should be demanding that our libraries evolve to remove wasteful and expensive services (that many of its users can already afford to pay for directly), and focus on the needs of those who cannot pay. Our average library staff salary and benefits cost $25/hr - couldn't we double the assistance to the underprivileged by paying trained "Web Assistants" $10/hr to help them instead?

ryanwaggoner 15y ago
In my county, we spend $90 million per year for our libraries - about 0.5% of property taxes. As a home owner, neary 15% of the cost of your home, is being funneled to the library system. Huh? I'm not understanding your math here at all...
- mckoss 15y ago
  I was doing a back of the envelope NPV calculation - 30 years of 0.5% payments -> 15%. Depending in the discount rate, it's less than that; which is why I said "nearly".
  - yardie 15y ago
    Wow, you've taken 2 numbers that don't have anything in common except the word year and managed to produce an irrelevant value. Using your calculation 40 years * 30% FICA means I'm paying 1200% income tax. Fox News would be proud.

abhaga 15y ago

Libraries are one thing I miss a lot in India since returning from US. Public library system is virtually non-existent here. It is sad to see it getting destroyed where it existed.

deleted 15y ago

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bobz 15y ago

This is a reply to several comments, but is important enough that I wanted it at the top level. Andrew Carnegie founded MUCH more than the Carnegie Library. In fact, a mind boggling number of public libraries in the States alone, and more worldwide, not to mention trade schools, medical research institutions, etc. Not only did he give the money to fund the library, but he only did so in cases where the town was ready to take on the burden of supporting it. He was a man with an ego, but his generosity in this regard goes beyond ego. He was a man of virtue, who genuinely sought to see his fortune go back into society to make it a greater place. The amount of good he did boggles my mind and humbles me. The abundance of public libraries in this country are not a result of liberalism in government. They are a result of liberalism in men's souls. So stop bitching about what other people are doing with their wealth, earned or unearned. That does not make you a better person. In my opinion, the rich are not necessarily wrong to be abandoning the U.S. middle classes. I would not be surprised if that wealth is not sitting in Scrooge McDuck's money vaults, but is instead being funneled into the third world now, raising up people with a true appreciation for the sacredness of life and wealth, with more perspective and less entitlement. Anyway, it doesn't matter. No, government has never been the solution. It has at best been a custodian, as it is with the public library system in the states. But every book in there, every microchip, and most of the buildings and maintenance are made of the lifeblood of hard working people who dedicated their life to creating more than they consumed.

cconroy 15y ago

It would be great if the government's budget included a computer and basic internet access in its assistance programs. I can't imagine this would be too expensive. Also people would benefit from the increasingly free education provided by Stanford, Udacity, etc.

shoover 15y ago

The concept of life getting harder for many people as computers take over is troublesome. I mean, we know to expect and accept some amount of frustration in return for efficiency and cost saving in general and computerizing anything in particular, e.g. downtime; more passwords to remember; UI, server, and workflow glitches; "Why can't this stupid thing just figure out what I mean?!" Ever try [[http://pic.bighugh.com/17.png][printing http://pic.bighugh.com/17.png][printing a label from usps.com]]? Eliminating paper forms sure seems like a slam dunk, though, doesn't it? Overall it is... for those of us with computers in every room and in our pockets. Indeed, what/who will fill the gap those in the shoes of the OP's example when library hours are reduced again and again and eventually the branches close and they are suddenly without internet access? Anyone watch the recent Bret Victor talk and looking for something to fight by inventing?

thewisedude 15y ago

Let me try to shed light on the other side of the argument. Based on the author's experience, it looks like what is really necessary for this day and age is a public browsing center with enough resources to teach computer "illiterates" [for a lack of a better word] how to find what they want in the digital world. NOT a library per se...now you might ask what the difference is : having a public library implies money has to spent on buying and managing books- which can be prohibitively expensive.