Cuts to library spending

[CazMar]

Imagine my horror when I looked at the local paper and saw a front page article telling me our state government is going to slash spending on libraries! So I am asking that anyone who lives in South Australia makes as much noise about this as possible - write to your local politician, have cars stickers with "I use Libraries and I vote!", sign petitions or whatever it takes to get these fools to see what a short-sighted move this is. Notice how there are no moves to slash spending on politician's overseas trips, cars and various perks.
When I go to our local library and see new migrants using the facilities to borrow books to learn English, or see carers taking out books for elderly, bedridden people I feel so angry that politicians could deprive what are often the most disadvantaged groups in our society from the simple pleasure of reading a book. Libraries also act as a focal point for information about local events, classes and school holiday activities.
So fellow South Aussies - get out there and make your views heard loud and clear!!

[Linda S. Prather]

Good luck, CazMar. We have the same problem here in the US. Every time our state wants to make budget cuts they pick the libraries first. We continue to fight and occasionally we win a small victory.

[JeremyR]

The trouble is, at least where I live, libraries have long ago stopped focusing on books, but renting movies, providing internet access (providing computers, not just a hotspot), renting video games and whatnot.

Why should a publicly funded place directly compete with video rental stores/services? Or internet cafes?

Every DVD bought could have been a book. Every video game 4-5 books. But when when you look at the book stacks, it's empty and bereft of classics. More titles from William Shatner in the SF section than Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke. Never mind past authors who have faded into obscurity, but who are well worth reading.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by JeremyR

The trouble is, at least where I live, libraries have long ago stopped focusing on books, but renting movies, providing internet access (providing computers, not just a hotspot), renting video games and whatnot.

Libraries in the UK have gone the same way, I think it's just to get people through the doors in the same sort of numbers that they used to before the internet. If they just loaned books, I don't think many people would bother with them any more. Once you've paid for parking or a bus ride to the library you've pretty much spent the cost of a second hand book from Ebay anyway.

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by JeremyR

The trouble is, at least where I live, libraries have long ago stopped focusing on books, but renting movies, providing internet access (providing computers, not just a hotspot), renting video games and whatnot.

Why should a publicly funded place directly compete with video rental stores/services? Or internet cafes?

Every DVD bought could have been a book. Every video game 4-5 books. But when when you look at the book stacks, it's empty and bereft of classics. More titles from William Shatner in the SF section than Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke. Never mind past authors who have faded into obscurity, but who are well worth reading.

Karma to you for that!!!

Same here.....its a media center, not a library. We have vending machines with food and soda, tons of computers, 'meeting rooms' for teenagers, and the shelves are sadly lacking in books.

In the center, are stacks of the newest books by currently popular authors. Go figure.

But wait! Theres more!!!

They refuse to shelve fiction by genre. Only by author.

"Because its too hard for our volunteers to know where a book goes"

Does anyone else remember finding wonderful new authors by browsing the 'mystery' or 'science fiction' or whatever section for hours?

[CazMar]

Originally Posted by JeremyR

The trouble is, at least where I live, libraries have long ago stopped focusing on books, but renting movies, providing internet access (providing computers, not just a hotspot), renting video games and whatnot.

Why should a publicly funded place directly compete with video rental stores/services? Or internet cafes?

We have had a service here where local libraries "share" books, so you can order a book and it will be delivered to your local library. The funding is also used for our excellent State Library which is vast, but still keeps an even larger library in storage. Order books in the morning and they will be ready for you in an hour or so. Sure, there are novels and some videos in local libraries. Lots of audio books. The libraries also run courses in everything from genealogy to mental health. If your local library is full of trash - who is to blame? If you don't give really good funding or jump up and down and protest whenever this service is cheapened or downgraded then libraries will degenerate. You get what you pay for.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by JeremyR

The trouble is, at least where I live, libraries have long ago stopped focusing on books, but renting movies, providing internet access (providing computers, not just a hotspot), renting video games and whatnot.

Why should a publicly funded place directly compete with video rental stores/services? Or internet cafes?

Or bookstores?

Why are they allowed to compete with Borders, but not with Blockbuster? No reason that I can see. Although I hope that they have a healthy dose of instructional and classic DVDs mixed in with more popular ones.


If libraries lend books, I see no reason whatsoever that they shouldn't also lend DVDs. If they have reference material, there's no reason that they shouldn't also provide internet service (and computers, if need be, since it's hard to think of a better research tool than an internet connected computer

Every DVD bought could have been a book. Every video game 4-5 books. But when when you look at the book stacks, it's empty and bereft of classics. More titles from William Shatner in the SF section than Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke. Never mind past authors who have faded into obscurity, but who are well worth reading.

I don't see a reason not to have books and DVDs.

Although it does sound like your library has a notably poor selection of SF - but I'm not sure that not buying DVDs would help - the Asimov, etc., should have been bought before the Shatner, in any event.

And, yeah, I do kind of dislike how some libraries are moving away from genre shelving. I mean, I sort of understand their difficulty, since I can't really *explain* why some SF is genre and some isn't. But I think that almost all SF fans would know that Asimov and Clarke go in the SF section, while Vonnegut and Margaret Atwood go in the fiction section. Ursula LeGuin goes in the SF or Fantasy section (depending on the book), but you get the feeling she's not at ease there.

[kennyc]

They closed two branch libraries and cut back on hours in all of our libraries last year.

Good Luck there!

[J. Strnad]

If you surf the library websites, you'll see that libraries face a fundamental problem: They need to remake themselves as an entity that is central to the community. As local repositories of books and magazines, they had that essential function. Now that information is more easily obtained over the internet, and now that several Libraries at Alexandria can fit on an SD card, they've lost that central function.

I have very fond memories of my town's neighborhood library, of sometimes making the trip to the "big" library downtown, and of going to the library for research, including research on how to become a professional writer. But I have to admit, when I want to know something now, I hit the internet rather than the streets. I let my library card expire and just re-upped recently so that I could...what else?...check out ebooks.

Libraries need to reinvent themselves in order to survive. Nostalgia alone won't save them.

And again, this isn't just some cranky old poop talking. It's pretty much the buzz in the library world.

[jhempel24]

Huh, it kind of sucks to read these stories, I guess Cincinnati still has a good library system. They don't have much in the way of computers to the ones I go to. They've always had the books I was looking for as well.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by JeremyR

The trouble is, at least where I live, libraries have long ago stopped focusing on books, but renting movies, providing internet access (providing computers, not just a hotspot), renting video games and whatnot.

Yes, and why shouldn't they? They are providing access to today's media, whatever those happen to be at the time.

Why should a publicly funded place directly compete with video rental stores/services? Or internet cafes?

Or bookstores?

So who uses the internet in a library? Apart from quickly looking something up, or perhaps checking email, it's people who don't have access to it neither at home nor at work. Are you really suggesting that providing free (or cheap) access to books is good and proper and worth the tax money spent on it, but providing access to the internet is not?

We could argue about computer games and DVDs and such, perhaps, but then again no such distinction is made with books where practically anything goes.

Every DVD bought could have been a book. Every video game 4-5 books.

Really? I could find any number of DVDs that more worthy of being carried by a public library than many of their books.

[SaraD]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

They refuse to shelve fiction by genre. Only by author.

"Because its too hard for our volunteers to know where a book goes"

Does anyone else remember finding wonderful new authors by browsing the 'mystery' or 'science fiction' or whatever section for hours?

Now that part is just sad. A few years back my county's library system must have put a new person in charge of obtaining new stuff because yes, there is a large selection of non-book media that has become even bigger, but the book selection increased even more.

My favorite change was when science fiction and fantasy were seperated. The library uses a service that tells them how to classify each book and then a colored label is applied to the spine of the book to allow for easy shelving with a second sticker showing the first letter of the author's last name to even make that part easier. Sometimes I think the service has some severe malfunctions because of a series books 1, 4, and 5 are in SF, but 2 and 6 are with fantasy, and 3 is in romance. While this doesn't happen often, I found it quite annoying for a while. When I discussed it with a librarian she agreed that made no sense whatsoever, but doing whatever the program says works better because the librarians are no longer disagreeing about where a book should be shelved. Now I'm accustomed to it and just happy that the library has the book.

About a year ago e-books were added to the Overdrive selection for audiobooks and the selection is not growing as quickly as I would like, at least it is growing. When I request a book be purchased, usually the next in a series, I request it as an epub format. Often it still comes as a paperback, but I have hopes.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

They refuse to shelve fiction by genre. Only by author.

"Because its too hard for our volunteers to know where a book goes"

Does anyone else remember finding wonderful new authors by browsing the 'mystery' or 'science fiction' or whatever section for hours?

My library sorts them by author but puts a little picture sticker on the spine denoting what genre it is. Rocket ship for SF, magnifying glass for mystery, that type of thing.

[Cliff Ball]

I worked at a public library until the city cut the budget last year, and then I was gone. Of all the things to cut first, the library should be last, since during hard economic times, people go to the library now for free movies, using computers just to play online, and books. The library I worked at had more people taking home DVD's instead of books. We even had people who downloaded books and only came into the library to renew their library card.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Cliff Ball

I worked at a public library until the city cut the budget last year, and then I was gone. Of all the things to cut first, the library should be last, since during hard economic times, people go to the library now for free movies, using computers just to play online, and books. The library I worked at had more people taking home DVD's instead of books. We even had people who downloaded books and only came into the library to renew their library card.

I agree completely and sorry to hear you got cut.