The Great Equalizer

[taosaur]

Ebooks are very likely even now finding their way into the hands of "the unwashed" by way of phones and the cheap tablets and LCD ereaders one finds in drugstore chains. There is something to be said for being able to hand a schoolchild or poor relation a device loaded with 100, 1000 or 100,000 books rather than a couple of paperbacks or a Harry Potter boxed set.

[Pinecone]

I remember doing a project in a rural high school. The only library in town was the high school.

I was AMAZED, as my personal library contained probably 2 - 2.5 times as many books.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by taming

Yes. There are rural areas, suburban areas, and urban areas, and access is not the same in all parts of Missouri (or any other state). The person I responded to said he lived in "the same city (St. Louis)" not I live near the City of St. Louis (three counties over).

Yeah, but how often do people claim residence of the nearest known town out of convenience? I often said I lived in St Louis, because who would know Grover, Winfield, or Maryland Heights unless they lived in the area?

[Andrew H.]

What do people mean when they claim that the library is a(n) (great) equalizer? And how is this different from the way that, say, public swimming pools are equalizers because they provide access to a swimming pool for people who do not have their own pool or belong to a country club?

[RDaneel54]

I always thought my revolver was the great equalizer.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

What do people mean when they claim that the library is a(n) (great) equalizer?

The idea is that libraries can (theoretically) be an aid to class mobility, which other public services can't (even theoretically) claim.
Anecdotal evidence proves that it *can* happen, albeit nowhere near as often as it should.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by RDaneel54

I always thought my revolver was the great equalizer.

Only if it's a Colt (tm).

[covfam]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

Only if it's a Colt (tm).

Dunno my Bersa Thunder .380 does a pretty good job

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The idea is that libraries can (theoretically) be an aid to class mobility, which other public services can't (even theoretically) claim.
Anecdotal evidence proves that it *can* happen, albeit nowhere near as often as it should.

I'm a little skeptical of a strong form of this claim - there is really strong evidence that public education adds to class mobility (education is second only to inherited wealth as a determiner of class), but I haven't seen anything comparable for libraries (which, in any event, only work if there is some baseline literacy).

I suspect that library supporters in the 19th century did have class mobility as a goal, but in practice having access to Principia Mathematica or The Aenead did not lead to members of the working class with an 8th grade education teaching themselves calculus or Latin. Basically, mere access to books is not enough. However, libraries can be used to leverage already existing education - if, having learned calculus or to read the Aenead, you want more calculus or Latin, libraries are good at meeting this need.

I think that this kind of leveraging is important, as it can dramatically increase the breadth of your education - but it presupposes a certain level of education in the first place. This may well add some to class mobility, but not in a dramatic way.

It is possible that the availability of children's books - especially for preschoolers - may have an effect on class mobility, as there is good evidence that reading to young kids makes them smarter and better students. So if parents of modest means are able to obtain a lot of books to read to their kids (and libraries do contain a lot of books of these types), there may be stronger effect on class mobility than otherwise. It is just hard to know what this might be, as the effect can only work if there are also actively interested parents who will go to the library, find the books, and then take the time to read them to their children. Kids with parents like this may do well under any circumstances.

All of these examples deal with children; I can't see libraries having much effect on social mobility after age 18...with the important exception of free internet access.

Of course, public libraries have been around a long time (over 150 years in my city), and their mission has changed quite a bit: originally, they were about access to knowledge, in the sense of technical works or works of classic literature; now (and I think since the 50's) they are a lot more about access to books, especially fiction, generally. You can see this in the Dewey Decimal System, which simply assigned literature a number, like any other small branch of knowledge: American literature was assigned 813. This is also why I've never been to a library that used DD for fiction, since that would result in probably half of the books in the entire library (or at least in a branch library) being in the 800's.

[apbschmitz]

Just an observation here. I live in an immigrant neighborhood in St. Paul, MN, and find that every time I walk into the local library it's a God-bless-America moment. The place is full of kids working out the internet on a large bank of computers. There are always a couple English classes underway. There are meeting rooms that are almost constantly booked. The fiction section is nothing to write home about, but you can order any book in the system and get it delivered within a few days. Despite the fiction gap, there is a deep selection of auto repair guides, home handyman titles, books in Spanish and Hmong, etc. There's even heated underground parking, and this in a poor, central-city neighborhood. I guess my point here is that a library can still be pulled off right in some places, and when it is done right in can make a tremendous difference in a community. This library is the social hub of this neighborhood.