7 ms·
Libraries and Well-Being: A Case Study from The New York Public Library
- modeless 2y agoGroundbreaking research reveals people surveyed report that they like it when you give them things for free. I love libraries. But this "research" is silly.
- fliglr 2y agoThey didn't measure the values before and after visiting the library so it's useless. "People who enjoy libraries also report enjoying libraries"
- infocollector 2y agoI actually agree with the article, but this piece feels like a conflict of interest — a library conducting research on how libraries improve everything.
- Avicebron 2y agoMaybe it's hard to justify studying the positive affects of libraries (and third spaces generally) within a community to a non-library inclined audience. Anecdote: While chronically underfunded to a overwhelming degree, local libraries and their staff in my area have consistently stepped up to the plate by trying to support the communities. Most notably when schools around here stopped offering any sort of afterschool/enrichment programing internally for kids, the libraries basically just added to their model.
- andsoitis 2y agoWhat if you simply inform the non-library inclined audience of the context you shared in your anecdote? Doesn't that provide sufficient foundation for a more even evaluation?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- barathr 2y agoI highly recommend Klinenberg's Palaces for the People, which he named after Carnegie's phrase for libraries. Here's an interview he did on 99% Invisible: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/palaces-for-the-people/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/palaces-for-the-peopl...
- hbbio 2y agoAt first I thought the title was about _software libraries_. And I wasn't so sure the answer to that could be definitive!
- turnsout 2y agoThank you—I came here ready to complain about dependencies. haha
- ripped_britches 2y agoHm so they just asked people that go to libraries if they like libraries? Seems silly to waste your time with such questions
- readthenotes1 2y agoAt least it's probably replicable
- NotYourLawyer 2y ago[flagged]
- teleforce 2y agoYou have a very strange idea of wasting time. If I want to survey the effectiveness of Post Office in the era of Internet (email, messenger, etc), I'd definitely interview mainly the visitors to the Post office to check their their purposes, experiences and activities there. For example, you'll probably find someone posting a postcard inside the post office since that someone is probably a visiting tourist.
- liontwist 2y agoPost office visits are compelled by other business, like taxation.
- rahimnathwani 2y agoWhy wouldn't you sample a random set of potential post office users? If you wanted to know what parents think of public schools, would you survey only the parents who currently send their kids there, or would it also be informative to know the opinions of the parents whose children educated elsewhere?
- itishappy 2y agoIt would depend on what type of data you're collecting. If you're looking to understand the quality of a service, non-users are worthless, you need to talk to people who've spent actual time with it. If you're looking to get impressions of a service, then sure, ask anyone and everyone.
- arjie 2y agoI wonder what reasons caused commercial libraries to be easily accessible in my home town of Chennai but the general viewpoint in my now home of San Francisco is that they can't exist. I suppose the biggest differences are cost of materials, cost of labour, and land use requirements. Libraries do naturally arise from the first-sale doctrine here. I think they would not exist in SF but perhaps Walnut Creek etc would have some.
- relaxing 2y agoBecause government-run free libraries squeeze out any profit-making possibility.
- _carbyau_ 2y agoThankfully. Can you imagine a modern for-profit library? Pay fees for access. Pay more fees to "skip the queue" for reserving books. Enjoy ads on your mandatory library app AND in your paid-for library space. Yeeesh. No thanks. A modern public library is a simple reminder that we CAN have good things.
- robertlagrant 2y agoIt wouldn't be hard to imagine paying a not for profit institution directly instead of via taxes. Then its funding would be unaffected by political vagaries, as it would be funded by people's choice.
- cguess 2y agoBecause libraries are often used by the people who can least afford it. They offer resume classes, ESL, computer literacy, some will even have collections of clothes that can be borrowed for job interviews. Libraries should be a public service, not a private institution.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
- hindsightbias 2y agolibc has always been all things to all people.
- hintymad 2y agoWas it Benjamin Franklin who established the public library system in the US? I think it was one of the greatest achievements in civilization. Every town in the US has a nice library for people to relax and to immerse themselves in knowledge or in an beautiful imaginary world.
- mitchbob 2y agoAccording to [1], it started with Franklin: In addition to membership libraries, Benjamin Franklin also played a role in the development of the first lending library. In 1790, Franklin donated a collection of books to a Massachusetts town that named itself after him. Though the town asked Franklin to donate a bell, he determined that "sense" was more important than "sound." Franklin residents voted for those donated books to be freely available for town members, creating the nation's first public library. [1] https://dp.la/exhibitions/history-us-public-libraries/beginnings/first-public-libraries https://dp.la/exhibitions/history-us-public-libraries/beginn...
- 6SixTy 2y agoAndrew Carnegie helped establish a whole bunch of public libraries across the US. He's probably the only reason every town has one.
- mlsu 2y agoAndrew Carnegie basically invented the public library system as we know it in the USA. He built a library in like every town. Thousands of them, I think. He credited reading books for his success and passed the privilege to everyone else.
- WillAdams 2y agoWell, largish town in the northeast for the most part. When my family moved to the rural county in Virginia my father chose to retire to, the county "library" was a metal carrel of used paperbacks in one corner of the basement of the old Courthouse, open two afternoons a week, staffed by a volunteers from a local ladies auxiliary --- it took almost 3 decades of fund-raising before they were able to build a library on a small plot of land donated by the local school system.
- WillAdams 2y ago>Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries. >---Anne Herbert, _The Next Whole Earth Catalog_ (1980), p 331.
- rr808 2y agoLibraries in NYC during winter time are mostly daycare to keep homeless people warm.
- starspangled 2y agoI know someone who works at a public library in a small city. A lot of their work is "managing" homeless, mentally ill, and drug addicted customers who are attracted by shelter and free computers and internet. I don't particularly have a problem with public funds going toward that, but I don't think library staff are trained or signed up for that work, or that libraries are an appropriate and cost effective way to help these people. I don't think libraries should be sacred. They're nice to look at and nostalgic, but are increasingly anachronisms. Specialized facilities for higher education and historical research I can see still having some use, perhaps small school libraries, but the average public library not so much. They use a lot of space, a lot of floor space for books, requires staffing.
- bombcar 2y agoThe really small towns around here have the library in the same building as the community center and police station. Seems to help somewhat.
- jgoodhcg 2y agoI think the article linked is saying that libraries should be sacred _because_ they are nice to be in. They make people feel better about their life and the world based on some seemingly rigorous survey results. IMO the mindset that everything everything has to be optimized to not use up “too much floor space” if it presumably doesn’t return enough measurable value is the kind of mentality that causes societal issues that we need nice libraries to counteract.
- starspangled 2y ago> I think the article linked is saying that libraries should be sacred _because_ they are nice to be in. Yeah, and I'm saying they shouldn't be. > They make people feel better about their life and the world based on some seemingly rigorous survey results. > IMO the mindset that everything everything has to be optimized to not use up “too much floor space” if it presumably doesn’t return enough measurable value is the kind of mentality that causes societal issues that we need nice libraries to counteract. It's not that it's too much floor space, it's that it costs too much for the benefit it provides. With government expenditure in western countries approaching or even exceeding 40% of GDP with no sign of slowing and social problems that seem to be worse than ever in some cases, I would say that efficiency of government service delivery is critically important. It's not even hyper optimizing, just basic optimizing would be nice.
- vector_spaces 2y agoOne of the sad realities about physical libraries is that they are dying, at least in American university systems that have been parasitized by management consulting firms. For instance, Georgia Tech recently moved their physical collection to off-campus stacks shared with Emory University, and both the University of South Carolina and Texas A&M University systems are downsizing collections and moving towards an access model reliant on the ILL system. The A&M system has even gone further and largely eliminated tenure for librarians. Other university systems, like the one in my snall state, have started to push checking out ebooks over physical books in various ways, possibly in preparation for more drastic changes like this, or at least so that they can begin downsizing their collections This doesn't just affect students at universities, since many public institutions have historically offered community borrowing, and often have extremely rare books that simply aren't available otherwise It's a complicated issue since this phenomenon is driven partly by user demand -- students are reading much less than they used to, and far less in the way of physical books, and university systems are responding to changes in demand. It's still sad to see
- liontwist 2y ago> students are reading much less than they used to, and far less in the way of physical books There is the answer. It's really hard to justify when usage is so low. I am not under the illusion that "everything is on the internet". The best information is in books. But it's hard to argue University libraries aren't mostly study areas, and the books are symbolic. I wouldn't be surprised if its budget is already under "alumni outreach". This is perhaps another symptom of the weird mix of undergrad, with a government research institution attached.
- tigerlily 2y agoLibraries are the secret weapon of the truly excellent. My late art foundation director friend would occasionally write art theory and critiques for books and curatorial pieces, and I remember wondering how he was able to get across so many references and so much material to write so eloquently? Of course he'd been working since the 70's, but it wasn't till I set foot in a public library that I was like "Aha... surely this was his secret weapon.".
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoOne thing we have at the local library which I'm surprised hasn't caught on more broadly is a maker space. They teach classes and once you've taken them you can us things like sewing machines, 3D printers/scanners, laser cutters, CNC machines etc (https://ppld.assabetinteractive.com/library-of-things/by-object-type/?filter-categories%5B0%5D=library-21c-make-ii https://ppld.assabetinteractive.com/library-of-things/by-obj...).
- cableshaft 2y agoThe basement of our local library is a maker space, with a lot of that same equipment (maybe not CNC machines, but they have embroidery machines, silhouette cutters, 3d printers, laser cutters, etc), and also has sound rooms for recording podcasts or music. I also found out last year they have an extensive manga collection (multiple shelves in both the teen and adult areas), so I've been taking advantage of that to read thousands of dollars worth of manga for free (I've bought copies of a few favorites afterwards, though).
- IG_Semmelweiss 2y agoThis is an excellent point. I wonder if its because of noise restrictions or just no budget to retrofit things ? It certainly is a logical next step
- quantumsequoia 2y agoMy library has one, but it's only open for 1 hour a week, which is a shame because most 3d prints take longer than that
- remram 2y ago1 hour? How do you even justify getting equipment if you don't intend for it to be used? Those machines will be obsolete before they have been used the equivalent of 2 days.
- itishappy 2y agoMany do. It's a great upgrade!
- d--b 2y agoNot to undermine the study but if you ask regular users of anything, you’ll probably find that they like it, no? Eh, probably not.
- liontwist 2y agoI enjoyed many library programs growing up. But my local library now is a homeless shelter and pornography rental. Luckily they have a separate area for kids, but even then it's not a place I want to leave my 4 year old outside of a 10ft radius. It's just unfortunate that every public facility becomes an overflow for super-users, instead of addressing their needs directly.
- dang 2y agoThe thing I miss most about physical libraries is the serendipity of finding a book in the stacks which I would never have run across otherwise. Online access has so many advantages, but I can't shake the feeling that it traps me within the web of my existing associations.
- davidw 2y agoPowell's in Portland, Oregon is pretty amazing for precisely this reason, if you ever get a chance to go.
- dang 2y agoIt sure is!
- gdubs 2y agoDefinitely experienced this in the Los Altos public library - one of my favorites. Combing through a stack and really feeling that a librarian's mind had placed these particular groupings together.
- BrenBarn 2y agoAgreed. I mean, this applies to various kinds of things, not just libraries: there used to be many more retail stores of various kinds (record stores, video rental shops, hobby stores, whatever) where you could browse and encounter things you hadn't intended or expected to encounter.
- dang 2y agoI was thinking of record stores as well. I spent so much of my life in those. Now on the rare occasion when I go into one, I have the uncanny sense of being back in the distant past, or back in a dream I had mostly woken up from.
- BrenBarn 2y agoI've found myself going to thrift stores a lot more these days than I used to because they're among the dwindling number of places left where there's still that experience of browsing and frequently seeing stuff you didn't expect to see.
- ushuaia 2y agoI love libraries and the huge benefit to society (especially low income individuals) libraries provide, but my biggest frustration is the lack of spaces to take video calls (personal or work) and the early hours they close. It would be nice for libraries to be available past 6pm for those that work a regular 9-5. For example, to my knowledge, there's not a single place reasonably convenient in NY Bryant Park library or Stavros Foundation library where I can take video calls. In more suburban cities I frequent, the hours are often 9-5 with a Sunday operating 1-5pm. It also frustrates me so much that coffee shops (establishments expecting purchases to stay) function more conveniently than libraries as a place I can sit down and work.
- idamantium 2y agoI've done video calls from the roof of Stavros Foundation Library, but that's weather dependent. Actually, now that I think of it, I've also done at least one video call from the halls of the Stephen A. Schwarzman research branch across the street. Granted, these are not dedicated co-working spaces where you can make any noise you wish, but some calls are possible.
- valunord 2y agoI suppose this explains why those of us with families with large personal libraries have such good results in our children.
- itishappy 2y agoI suspect being able to afford a large personal library is a stronger signal than the books themselves.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y agoApparently Zuckerbucks has spent more, infation-adjusted, on GPUs for "AI" than Carnegie spent on libraries and, inflation-adjusted, Carnegie was wealthier than Schmuckerberg. As for Meta's effect on "well-being", that is a question left for the reader.
- idamantium 2y agoA new library branch, the first new one in the Brooklyn system in over 30 years, opened on the ground floor of my building. It's been the biggest quality of life boost I ever remember experiencing that didn't involve a move. The librarians know me by name because I put so many board games on hold.