[astrangerhere]

In an ideal world, I'd think this would be more well-suited to a community center. Though given how many budgets are now, I understand that there may not even be a community center. I'm not sure how I feel about it being done with library funds though.

I worked at the oldest university library in the country for a while about 10 years ago, and we re-modeled during my tenure there. Because of the need for media centers, etc, we had to institute a policy that for every new book that came in and old one had to go out. That is, when we could pry money away from the media lab's $700-a-pop copies of dreamweaver, etc etc. It was miserable. Sure, the compsci students loved getting to play with all that expensive software for free, but at what cost to the rest of the liberal arts undergraduates?

I'm all for kids getting a creative outlet, but I am more for them having books to read. If i had to balance the one with the other, I'm going to pick books everytime. Do I want Dick and Jane to have a place where they can explore music and other outlets? Yes. Do I want my library budget paying for it? No, not really.