Quote:
Originally Posted by JeremyR
I live in St. Louis; my mother worked as a librarian for St. Louis County for something like 35 years. It's seriously screwed up.
For one, besides a lot of management problems (which are quite lurid, she was at HQ, too, this place that they want to rebuild. Imagine a soap opera with people sleeping with each other left and right and all sorts of drama), there is a focus on things besides books - internet, as mentioned, but also DVDs. For a long time they were essentially acting as the DVD rental store for the region.
I literally have 1000s of empty DVD cases that she would bring home to me (since otherwise they would be thrown out). The vast majority were hollywood blockbusters.
Walk into a library in the system and will you find a book by a classic SF writer? Probably not. But you will find most of William Shatner's novels.
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I too live in St. Louis, the libraries are flat out scary. The last time I was there is was literally packed with homeless/vagrant people sleeping and hanging out. It was so crowded that it was impossible to really do any work, that combined with strange stares, panhandling, and just rude behavior made for one very unpleasant visit.
Yes the book selection is abysmal, probably because most of the classics have been stolen or never returned.
Sadly the St. Louis libraries have become nothing more than day shelters for the homeless. I certainly would not take my kids there...