4 ms·

As the author noted, I see libraries becoming more and more centers of community, notably in the Bay Area (California, USA). Just check out the events at all of

• alephnerd 17d ago
  When I was a kid in the 1990s and 2000s, libraries were already de facto community centers as well in the Bay, LA, and BC.
• carabiner 17d ago
  In Seattle they're mostly homeless shelters.
  • popalchemist 17d ago
    In LA, it's about 50/50. But in case you aren't aware, this is one of the purposes of libraries.
    • cube00 17d ago
      Depends on the library. If you appear to be sleeping, staff will check on your welfare, and wake you up. https://www.spl.org/about-us/policies/community-use-agreement https://www.spl.org/about-us/policies/community-use-agreemen...
      • popalchemist 17d ago
        I don't mean it's a shelter for them in the literal sense. As in a place to sleep. It IS however meant to be a safe harbor - a place they are welcome to simply EXIST. Ask google "is the ethos of libraries to help the homeless" Here's what it says: The core ethos of libraries is to provide universal, equitable access to information, resources, and safe spaces for all members of a community, including people experiencing homelessness. While public libraries are not specifically designed to be homeless shelters or social service agencies, their foundational commitment to inclusivity means they naturally serve as a vital lifeline for marginalized populations. This has always been the case.
        • carefree-bob 17d ago
          I'm not sure what you mean by "ethos of libraries", but this was not the original intent of libraries, or the "ethos" that most voters would use when deciding whether to fund a library or not. The problem with reimagining the role of publicly funded institutions and ascribing a new "ethos" to them that is not supported by the public is that funding gets cut and libraries get shut down. If you want to know the original ethos of libraries, it was to disseminate knowledge at low cost to members of the community. Not to be socially inclusive. Not to make people feel welcome. Not to provide "safe spaces". But to provide access to knowledge. By subverting this ethos, we have also subverted a lot of the funding model and political support, which is why libraries are having a difficult time right now.
          • popalchemist 17d ago
            Perhaps you do not know anyone who works in a library. Go ask one. This has been the ethos for over 100 years in America.
            • carefree-bob 17d ago
              In fact, I do. Maybe you are in a bubble, but go ahead and try to get people to vote for public funding of "safe spaces" and then have them vote for public funding of "convenient access to media for taxpayers", and see which proposition gets the most votes. You will be surprised, and then you will accuse America of being a fascist country, when the actual ethos of people are revealed.
    • gyomu 17d ago
      De facto it is in the US, but it is the only country in the world where that is the case.
      • LtWorf 17d ago
        There's often smelly people napping in Sweden. I presume their housing situation isn't the best. Or they are not mentally capable of cleaning themselves.
      • SyneRyder 17d ago
        There's definitely some of it happening in Australia. I wouldn't regard libraries as the safest of places. I had a period where I tried working from there on my laptop, before realizing I was incredibly naive and there were a lot of homeless and mentally ill people there. Took me a while to realize why people would tell me to avoid the men's toilets in the library as well.
        • imawakegnxoxo 17d ago
          Homeless problem in Australia right now is insane People sleeping in every car park at parks and beaches etc I'm a night person with bad insomnia so I often go for drives or walks at night and a lot of my favourite places to go are now heavily populated by people sleeping in their cars
          • SyneRyder 16d ago
            Night person here too - midnight walks during an Australian summer are excellent. The homeless situation isn't quite that bad where I am in Perth's suburbs, but there was a guy living out of his 4WD in a local shopping center carpark for a while. He had a prominent sign about his situation asking for money, but to his credit he was offering to do things in return (he helped a family member with a deflated tire once). Many of the homeless in Perth city seem to be mental health cases though, where a skilled job providing an income that could support themselves is unlikely.
        • trollbridge 16d ago
    • TulliusCicero 17d ago
      It really shouldn't be. We should have dedicated shelters for that. Relying on libraries to be de facto homeless shelters is bad for everyone compared to the alternative of dedicated facilities. It's worse for homeless people, worse for the library and staff, and worse for patrons.
      • crooked-v 17d ago
        Unfortunately, the US is filled with people who are happy to make their own lives worse if it hurts people they don't like even more.
      • popalchemist 17d ago
        [dead]
      • bobthepanda 17d ago
        The problem is that we’ve wound up in an unhappy place due to the weird perverse incentives of ideology. Taking homeless people off the street, whether to a hospital or jail, costs a lot of money; so we lack something to do in a climate where a good chunk of the populace is rabidly against paying more money for anything.
        • TulliusCicero 17d ago
          I think you're right that people are against these things, but wrong about the reasons. Taking homeless people to jail because they're homeless just seems stupid and pointless, not to mention harmful to the person going to jail. Shelters have the issue where people don't want them near where they live (for often justifiable reasons) but obviously they have to go somewhere.
          • OroPla 16d ago
            Don't we already have rehabilitation centers? I definitely think that you have to take homeless people being a nuisance off the streets against their will. There's already plenty of invisible homeless people living out of a car that shower in the gym. They aren't a public nuisance and there should be structures where someone like that can get help from. But the actual homeless problem are the drug addicts and beggars that are a public nuisance. There's no solution to that problem other than moving them against their will, is there?
    • mulakosag 17d ago
      Then don't call it a library, call it a homeless support center with books. i see the same thing here in austin, the central library is full of homeless people, shouting in silent room, shooting guns in restrooms. I love books and libraries more than anything but it saddens when place for knowledge are converted into daytime homeless shelters.
      • tokai 17d ago
        You can always spot the Americans because any talk about libraries will turn into whining about homeless people existing. You should fix your social system.
        • trollbridge 16d ago
          It should be possible to have public libraries without fixing all other social ills first.
  • canadiantim 17d ago
    That's still community
    • winrid 17d ago
      A smelly one
      • _eht 17d ago
        We are so glad you have access to showers and hygiene products with no regard. Even so, you are the kind of off-putting that soap can not fix.
      • imp0cat 17d ago
        So it's something like a gym? ;)
      • ashkankiani 16d ago
        If you saw a homeless person in a library, would you be able to tell them they smell to their face? Do you have that kind of "bravery"? Or is it just here, amongst your "peers."
        • winrid 15d ago
          No because they're likely mentally unstable :D
  • Markoff 17d ago
    One Prague branch I frequent is hang out spot for kids to be hooked on free wifi and stare at smartphone, there is no better place to stare at your smartphone than in library full of books! I even complained* why they won't set some time limits per connection to make it annoying enough to be useless for kids (but still usable for someone for few minutes to look up some book reviews/database), but seems everyone including management is addicted to smartphones. It's nice that library is welcoming young people, though not sure if encouraging their smartphone addiction is the right way to attract someone. *main reason for complaint wasn't kids staring at phones and playing games, but shouting swear words during gaming on phone and playing it loudly without earbuds, when I am visiting with small kids who are interested in actual books
    • trollbridge 16d ago
      This must be global since I had a similar experience on the east coast of the USA. It seems reasonable to expect a public library not to functionally be an Internet gamer café.
• foundart 17d ago
  SF folks: check out https://www.milibrary.org/ https://www.milibrary.org/
• Loughla 17d ago
  Libraries have always had events and activities related to books and other things not book related. People are just now noticing them. This is a great thing and I hope it sticks. I believe people are getting sick of every interaction being monetized and are finally seeking out spaces where you can learn and interact with others without that threat.
  • rapind 17d ago
    > I believe people are getting sick of every interaction being monetized and are finally seeking out spaces where you can learn and interact with others without that threat. Shhh... you're going to get libraries monetized.
• lolakutty 16d ago
  >I wonder if there's a resurgence across the world where libraries are places of community sharing. I feel there is, but I am not yet seeing anything concrete.
• Vinnl 16d ago
  > I wonder if there's a resurgence across the world where libraries are places of community sharing. Just last week new stats came out [1] that library attendance by young people in the Netherlands is going up again, so possibly! [1] https://nos.nl/artikel/2630399-meer-locaties-meer-bezoekers-en-meer-leden-bibliotheek-zit-in-de-lift https://nos.nl/artikel/2630399-meer-locaties-meer-bezoekers-...
• alper 16d ago
  It's the same here in the various city libraries of Berlin both in the state library as well in the various branches across town. State: https://www.zlb.de/veranstaltungsuebersicht/ https://www.zlb.de/veranstaltungsuebersicht/ And this is by no means special. I'm pretty sure this is the case for most major city libraries in Europe. Other than that lots of people do their work or homework there, hangout in the outside spaces, book rooms for community meetings. With some more budget, I think there's a lot to be said for these to become default community activity/collaboration spaces.
• trollbridge 16d ago
  I see libraries throwing out large amounts of books, and then chasing non-book things that became laughably obsolete in a few years, such as: - audio books on little devices to plug headphones into, which have cheap rechargeable batteries that seem to be mostly dead - collections of children’s toys in a toy room that after a few years are missing most of their pieces - large collections of DVDs - computer labs full of computers that are old/slow and then need all kinds of restrictions due to a handful of antisocial people using them for inappropriate things, leaving them nearly unusable for anyone else - fancy 3D printing labs containing hardware without enough volunteers to teach people how to use it, and with hardware going obsolete or unmaintained/broken - a seed bank that had obviously not had any seed packets taken out in years My local library is eliminating a section of books in order to build a “sensory room”. Nothing against sensory rooms, but I’m not sure it was a good trade for yet another skip full of books. (There is a YMCA next door that would be a more appropriate place for a sensory room - and indeed it has one.) On a recent library trip, despite all that, the dehumidifier was not working and I saw signs of permanent humidity damage to books in the archive. This is the one thing libraries should be doing: preserving books.
• lurk2 16d ago
  > I wonder if there's a resurgence across the world where libraries are places of community sharing. Libraries have become obsolete as the public’s media consumption patterns have changed. The premise of the public library system was that knowledge would be made freely accessible so that it couldn’t be gatekept by elites. In practice, however, most libraries have turned into the fiefdoms of the librarians who manage them; these librarians will appeal to the access-to-knowledge premise the institutions were built on only to turn around and tut at patrons who expect the facilities to be clean, quiet, and dedicated to accessing knowledge. Librarians don’t want to be put out of the job, so they have redirected funding into operating as community centers. Patrons also abuse the spaces to use them as remote offices and daycares. All three practices result in a degraded experience for those who are still interested in using libraries as libraries.
• _s_a_m_ 16d ago
  Good, nice, who would have thought.
• WillAdams 16d ago
  >Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries. --- Anne Herbert