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Originally Posted by wizwor
I do. It's expensive to maintain a building, a staff, and a collection of movies and books. If the cost of these was paid entirely by patrons, there would be no patrons.
The public library was created to give people access to information in a day when there were no alternatives. Very few people used public libraries. Many could not read and many more could not get to the library. Public schools provide many more with much more -- including transportation. Most include a library that rivals the local public library.
To remain relevant, the libraries brought in resources not generally found in school libraries -- newspapers and magazines, then movies and audio books. It was cheaper to borrow consumer reports than subscribe to the magazine and you didn't have to store old editions. It was less expensive to borrow Jaws than to buy or rent it.
The internet has provided alternatives. Books are inexpensive and can be purchased without leaving the home. Unlimited access to movies can be had for pennies a day. A virtually unlimited collection of newspapers and magazines can be accessed for free. Many more can be accessed inexpensively. Product research is easier and many times more informative.
The response of the public libraries has been to provide free (as in other people pay for your use) access to for fee services (including museums and the internet).
Libraries do not serve their intended purpose, engage in acts that would be considered unlawful if practiced by other entities, unfairly compete with private enterprises, and are staffed by expensive people (the volunteers have been replaced by professionals; IT staff is now required).
While public libraries provide benefit to some members of society (especially those who draw a paycheck from one), there are other ways to spend the money that would provide more value to society.
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School libraries cater to, and sometimes only service, members of that institution, so even if some public school libraries do have more resources in certain areas, that means absolutely nothing to the general public, who may want completely different materials.
A library is supposed to cater to what its particular community wants and needs when it comes to collection development and information access. If the general public wants periodicals and films, yes, the library is going to stock those items. I fail to see how continuing to so in the age of Netflix is a problem. Not everyone has or wants a streaming movie service. Not everyone has or wants the bloody internet. When we're talking about public libraries, they're often funded significantly by people's taxes; using the money that people pay to buy materials that people want is not a bad thing, even if the materials they want aren't always of a certain educational standard.
Yes, libraries require professionals on staff. A library staffed largely by volunteers who love books is going to be an ineffective, poorly-run institution. Good librarianship is a specialized skill. And, yes, many libraries employ an IT specialist --
because libraries have technology in their buildings. Librarians are usually too busy doing their own jobs to do all of the computer repairs and maintenance that come up, or to maintain the website, or to run interference between the institution and Overdrive or EbscoHost or the company who provides the library's circulation/cataloging software when their servers are down, or to repair the public access terminals when some idiot accidentally downloads a virus, or to fix the net nanny on the computers in the kids' department because it's not working right, or the software that limits patrons to a 20 minute internet session when it glitches and lets a patron stay on for an hour, or any of the other things the IT worker is required to do.
The purpose of a library is to enhance learning and provide access to information, and while there may be individual libraries who don't fulfill this purpose very well, that are horribly mis-managed, and that don't serve their community in the way they should, the field as a whole tries to do a decent job of this, which isn't easy when so many people are cutting funding and shutting branches down because they think libraries are unnecessary in the age of the internet.