3 ms·

Why not?

walterbell 12y ago
Libraries are a form of insurance against the societal costs of illiteracy, which is related to crime. http://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/if-you-want-to-see-the-sharing-economy-go-to-the-library/ http://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/if-you-wa... --- Though the library may appear to be free, the truth is quite different; it is not that the library borrower is getting things for free, it is that they have already paid. Libraries are the result of a community pooling resources (often gathered through taxes) for the funding and purchasing of materials that are then made available to all members of that community. ... Just as a community invests in infrastructure like roads, bridges and water management systems – a community invests in a library. Libraries, if you will, represent educational and intellectual infrastructure. A recognition that just as a road makes it easier to reach your destination, so too does access to information enable one to complete a journey of another sort. ... what occurs in a library is the development and maintenance through the economy of a genuine structure for sharing. Numerous people contribute a little and from this are able to get a lot, but the value they extract from their investment is not in the form of a sack of money with a dollar sign on it, but a larger social value. It is a value that would be diminished by turning it simply into a profit-generating scheme. ---
- jasonisalive 12y ago
  Well that's very rousing, but only someone working for a chronically underfunded and at-risk institution would feel the need to write such flowery prose. If I was a rich taxpayer whose money was on the line I don't think I would be convinced.
  - walterbell 12y ago
    Yeah some wanted to turn NYC's flagship research library into a glorified starbucks, removing book stacks. Pesky enlightenment democracy and city elections had a diferent opinion. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/arts/design/public-library-abandons-plan-to-revamp-42nd-street-building.html?_r=1 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/arts/design/public-library... --- In a striking about-face, the New York Public Library has abandoned its much-disputed renovation plan to turn part of its research flagship on Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street into a circulating library and instead will refurbish the nearby Mid-Manhattan Library, several library trustees said .. This shift is something of a defeat for the library, which had already paid the British architect Norman Foster $9 million in private funds for his firm’s work on the plan for the flagship, a 1911 Beaux-Arts landmark. ---
  - taybin 12y ago
    The short-sightedness of the current crop of the upper class is a problem.

Why not?

Libraries are a form of insurance against the societal costs of illiteracy, which is related to crime. http://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/if-you-want-to-see-the-sharing-economy-go-to-the-library/ http://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/if-you-wa... --- Though the library may appear to be free, the truth is quite different; it is not that the library borrower is getting things for free, it is that they have already paid. Libraries are the result of a community pooling resources (often gathered through taxes) for the funding and purchasing of materials that are then made available to all members of that community. ... Just as a community invests in infrastructure like roads, bridges and water management systems – a community invests in a library. Libraries, if you will, represent educational and intellectual infrastructure. A recognition that just as a road makes it easier to reach your destination, so too does access to information enable one to complete a journey of another sort. ... what occurs in a library is the development and maintenance through the economy of a genuine structure for sharing. Numerous people contribute a little and from this are able to get a lot, but the value they extract from their investment is not in the form of a sack of money with a dollar sign on it, but a larger social value. It is a value that would be diminished by turning it simply into a profit-generating scheme. ---

jasonisalive 12y ago
Well that's very rousing, but only someone working for a chronically underfunded and at-risk institution would feel the need to write such flowery prose. If I was a rich taxpayer whose money was on the line I don't think I would be convinced.
- walterbell 12y ago
  Yeah some wanted to turn NYC's flagship research library into a glorified starbucks, removing book stacks. Pesky enlightenment democracy and city elections had a diferent opinion. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/arts/design/public-library-abandons-plan-to-revamp-42nd-street-building.html?_r=1 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/arts/design/public-library... --- In a striking about-face, the New York Public Library has abandoned its much-disputed renovation plan to turn part of its research flagship on Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street into a circulating library and instead will refurbish the nearby Mid-Manhattan Library, several library trustees said .. This shift is something of a defeat for the library, which had already paid the British architect Norman Foster $9 million in private funds for his firm’s work on the plan for the flagship, a 1911 Beaux-Arts landmark. ---
- taybin 12y ago
  The short-sightedness of the current crop of the upper class is a problem.