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California Library's Plan: Get Rid of Books
HansonMB writes "Facing the likelihood of state budget cuts that would eliminate $15 million for library and reading programs – and, apparently, create a future in which people no longer read things on paper – the city of Newport Beach is considering turning its first library into a community center that would host all the same amenities – except for the books."
The library has been inundated with hate-mail as people around the country have learned of their idea, and they hastened to clarify that no final decision has been made; carting books in as needed from other locations was always part of the plan. Whether or not they go through with it, efforts are underway elsewhere to create a massive, public digital library, spurred in part by the recent ruling against Google Books.
Isn't removing sources of learning the best way to win votes? That way the public will have no idea they are being brainwashed.
Late last century Stallman predicted as much:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
> ... there was a time when anyone could go to the library and read journal articles, and even books, without having to pay....
There's a great fictional story about this- pick up a copy of Vinge's 'Rainbows End' at your local libr... oops.
Except in that case, if i remember correctly at least, the library was giving into bribes from a megacorp that wanted to (destructively) digitize the books as part of their business plan. So it was due to corporate greed and stupidity.
In this case the public doesn't want to pay taxes to fund the library, but they get outraged when the library tries to make cuts to deal with the reduced amount of funding. So it's due to public greed and stupidity.
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well, it's probably two different publics, with little overlap...
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Except right now, libraries present little to zero cost for the user. A person can(in many cases) walk or ride public transportation to a library, where at no charge they can get a library card and have access to the books. In your future, a person will need to have access to a computer or a tablet/similar device. Unless these devices(and the various services that go with them such as internet, WIFI, 3G, whatever) get so cheap as to be virtually free, then you are in effect going to be preventing a rather large proportion of the population from accessing these books. A proportion of the population that, arguably, would need this access the most. So, unless you want to help pay for the government to give out tablets/computers to everyone on welfare, libraries going all digital won't be happening any time soon.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Maybe because paper books aren't surrounded by the draconion rights restrictions that either outright prevent sharing and lending, or at best severely limit the ability to share/lend that we see with electronic publications.
From TFA:
the city's Balboa branch - which "accounts for about six percent of the 1.3 million visitors that utilize Newport Beach Public Libraries each year" - is underutilized and "could be changed to better fit the community's needs."
"patrons could 'order' books from the large Central Library (located about four miles away)"
This isn't about closing the only library in town. This is about cutting the cost of maintaining a branch that a small percentage of people use by not buying books for that branch.
As much as I hate the idea of libraries losing their funding, I can't honestly say I would be against this if I lived there. It's about 3 miles from my house to the nearest public library and it isn't a difficult trip. It's what most people I know would consider to be within walking distance.
There is no single "public". Some people don't want to pay for the library other people love the library and are outraged. Sounds a little less irrational that way.
The public doesn't want to pay taxes to fund 6-figure public sector salaries and pensions, and the people making that pay decide to cut libraries and schools instead of their own pay (shocking, I know - but to give some excuse, at the state level the constitution requires pensions be funded first), and the public is outraged.
Cali is doomed anyhow - we may be the pioneer of state bankruptcy before much longer here, and many local governments are in crisis already (as the state's ability to bail out local governments is quite limited), and things like keeping the streeghlights on, the roads patches, and the trees clear of the power lines are fading before the all-consuming pension costs. (No joke: in my city the city switched from cutting trees away from roads and power lines to requiring homeowners to hire someone to do that - permit required, of course).
Still greed and stupidity, of course, but not so simple as you make it out to be.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I see your definition of "poor" includes possession of shelter (so the rain doesn't get on your 400 dollar device) wired to the electric grid (to power said device). And credit cards.
After all, when I want to give a handout to a beggar on the street I prefer to use a credit card swiper, or direct deposit my spare change into their tin cup.
I don't think "poor" means what you think it means.
Maybe I'm funny that way, but when it comes to preserving the knowledge of mankind for future generations, I don't believe petty laws and economic gamesmanship should matter. Let people "pirate" away, and 500 years from now, the people who live *then* can decide if they approve of what our generation did or not.
I'm sorry, but anyone who lives in LA knows that Newport Beach is not exactly "poor" or "cash-strapped" by any stretch of the imagination. It's a VERY affluent city, although being in the traditionally Republican stronghold of Orange County, maybe the taxpayers aren't willing to look under their suede leather sofa cushions to fund basic public services. This smells more like a scheme to do something trendy, rather than some sincere attempt to reduce spending.
The public doesn't want to pay taxes to fund 6-figure public sector salaries and pensions, and the people making that pay decide to cut libraries and schools instead of their own pay
That maybe true, but the public is grossly misinformed if they think there are many public sector workers making those kinds of salaries. The average salary of a local public library librarian was $47,940 in 2008, for example. http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos068.htm
(shocking, I know - but to give some excuse, at the state level the constitution requires pensions be funded first), and the public is outraged.
And why shouldn't pensions be funded first? They are nothing more than deferred payment of a worker's salary. Not paying a paying the pension is basically saying "We'll give you $100, $80 now and $20 later, to do x amount of work." Then after the work is done only paying them $80. I can't imagine any other scenario where that would be fair or legal.
Cali is doomed anyhow - we may be the pioneer of state bankruptcy before much longer here, and many local governments are in crisis already (as the state's ability to bail out local governments is quite limited), and things like keeping the streeghlights on, the roads patches, and the trees clear of the power lines are fading before the all-consuming pension costs.
Employee salaries and benefits only make up about 10% of the state budget ($7B salaries + $3.4B benefits) (p.177). This can hardly be blamed for the budget woes of California. Much more serious are Prop 13 and 2/3 majority needed for the state senate to pass any tax increases.
If I only had mod points - being married to a librarian, I can only say this: librarians are civil servants who look to better our society by helping people obtain and use information. If the rest of us should only be so luck to find ourselves doing something half as laudable.
Employee salaries and benefits only make up about 10% of the state budget ($7B salaries + $3.4B benefits) (p.177). This can hardly be blamed for the budget woes of California. Much more serious are Prop 13 and 2/3 majority needed for the state senate to pass any tax increases.
That number for salaries is for state employees, not all employees of the lower government levels. There is $30B for education and the biggest expense in education is salaries but teachers are employees of local school districts and universities. Something like 90% of a typical school district's expenses are salaries. Other categories are similar; a lot of the money goes to localities where they go for local government employees' salaries.
I know. It's those greedy, bottom-feeding librarians, and schoolteachers and cops and firemen and garbage collectors who have brought this great nation to its knees.
We've got to stop those people before they wipe out the good common folk, who work for a living and pay their taxes, like the hedge fund managers and investment bankers.
Public employee pensions make up an average 2-3% of state budgets nationwide.
Since it's clear that your anger at having to trim the tree on your own goddamn property, along with your greed and stupidity, lgw, have so corrupted your thinking that you're unable to accept the fact that the average public employee makes about $65k and the average employee nationwide about $43k. But see, private employees tend to skew much more to the blue collar. You've got to average in all those people working at Wal-Mart and McDonalds for minimum wage, whereas most public employees are the educated, blue collar variety.
When you figure in level of education, there really isn't a discrepancy between public and private employees. It's been fabricated to make people like you, who lack the analytic ability to understand why you should be worrying about why your company has screwed you out of a pension instead of why someone else has managed to keep their pension (hint: unions are good for workers), get all pissed off and shake your fist at the teevee and completely miss the reason why your income and benefits and working conditions continue to deteriorate to the point that if you had a wife she's probably wishing she married that nice guy who became a lawyer with a nice practice (and who was a much better lay). And most important, you'll forget who you really ought to be blaming in this whole mess.
People like you, who get played like violins by the people who are screwing you right into the ground and end up blaming everyone who has got something that you don't, disgust me. The only thing that attenuates my disgust is the knowledge that you have to live with your impotent anger like bad case of the piles.
Just don't fuck up our country any more. OK? I don't want my kid to have to grow up in a third-world shithole because people like you were pissed off that some college professor (yes, they're counted as "public employees") gets a six figure salary.
You are welcome on my lawn.
And Reading Rainbow. Oh wait, it ended a while ago. :(
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficial. – Justice Louis Brandeis
The first book I would recommend is "1984" and the second "Fahrenheit 451". when the power goes out, then what?
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Real books don't die after 36 loans
...or when the power goes out.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
How is prop 13 a problem? If we spend more than we have how does raising taxes solve the problem?
Does prop 13 specify that you need a 2/3 majority to approve what gets cut? If not, that's the problem. Shortsightedness. You tie the hands of the assholes in charge, and then leave it up to them to decide what to cut, so the things you think should be cut aren't (because they are good for votes), and shit like this happens.
Apparently lots of people never played D&D and cast a "Wish" spell
You might want to cite anything let alone California. In California the average correctional officer's salary is $66,720 [bls.gov]. This may be more than the national average but hardly the fat cat 6 figure salaries that keep being espoused.
That's salary. It does not count overtime. It does not count being paid for not taking vacation time. They get full medical care with zero premiums. They get 90% of their base pay their last year for the rest of their life gauranteed. When you add up the total amount of money that they are either paid by the state, or would have had to pay had the state not done so for them, it's over $100,000 per year, on average. More if you lump the gauranteed pensions which they contribute to at much lower rates than private sector workers for much higher payouts (public union payouts are gauranteed by law--if my 401k tanks, too bad for me. If their pension investment tanks, too bad for ME because I still have to pay it to them). That's where the six-figure number comes from.
It's a race to the bottom and all the Tea Partiers are out in front screaming "Me First!!!!"