[Barcey]

I’m interested in what people think the future is for local brick and mortar libraries. This is what you think will happen not what you’d like to happen.

We’re going through a local debate on a main branch upgrade and they’ve published some usage numbers. The main library and four branches serve a population of 213,000 and get an average of 3,400 people visiting them per day. The main branch has 1,000 visitors a day. The library is much more then just books and reference material though. There’s free computer/internet access, audio CD’s, DVD’s and club meetings so I’m not sure how many people are using it as a traditional library.

Options for upgrades are for renovation vs rebuild and are estimated at $26 million to $51 million (of course since it’s a government project it will never go over budget). This is just one time costs and I haven’t been able to find the annual operating costs.

I guess that I’m old fashioned but I still think of the libraries as research centers and book repositories. Promoting literacy and servicing people that can’t afford literature or research material. If those are really the core values I think we’re close to the price point where we could more economically and better serve people by providing them electronic books and diverting the money into central electronic archives. I know the current generation of readers aren’t sturdy enough to hand out to kids but I don’t think we’re far off.

I know this can be a touchy subject but what do you think?