Mac, it’s that Calvinist strain of thought; okay, we have to put up with people who have less money that we do (either God says we have to, or we don’t want them rioting and stealing our stuff), but by cracky we don’t have to make charity pleasant for the ungrateful bastards.

No, but it is kind of a shame in these tough recessionary times if a student can’t get a copy of the $80 class textbook that her merit scholarship simply can’t stretch far enough to cover because it’s paying for room and board and food and stuff.

(Oxford English Dictionary: full set, $975 sale price on Amazon.com. Use of: integral to passing one’s linguistics major. How on earth did this even become an argument? Why do we think libraries are primarily in the business of providing novels, again? I remember mainly using them in high school to look up resources for term papers in English and science classes — books, studies, magazine articles back in the days of microfiche, har har…)

So, first you argue that libraries are a “throw back” and bookstores make libraries obsolete, then drop this argument when even you realize it’s patently stupid; then you argue that libertarianism is “VERY relevant” but then throw an angry when it’s suggested that you’re trying to make a libertarian argument; and you seize on the idea of “entertainment” as the sole purpose for libraries, ignoring the many posts discussing libraries’ role as a source for reference materials, Internet access, homework assistance and educational programs, just to name a handful.

Perhaps there is an argument to be made that libraries’ functions in this regard should be or have been replaced by other institutions; or that tax dollars are the wrong source for funding libraries. You haven’t made that argument. “Get over it” and “I have daughters” are not arguments. Not good ones, anyway.

If you do have a goal other than preening about how much smarter you are than all those silly library-huggers, by the way, what you’re shooting for is not “approval” (mine, Scalzi’s, or anyone else’s); it’s “persuasiveness”. Persuasiveness is not generally achieved by ignoring what people have already said, calling them a bunch of idiots, and continually changing your argument while insisting that they’re nonetheless still a bunch of idiots (after all, they disagreed with you, didn’t they?).

“In our previous city (also in California), the city signed a contract with the union that barred any use of part time or volunteer staff.”

That makes no sense. I mean the motion to ban volunteers; I’m not calling shennanigans on you.

What’s the background to that? Librarians unionized and ousted volunteers? It seems like their negotiations may have gotten out of control.

one detail from the fairfax county stats I was happy to see. Almost 143,000 volunteer hours. I figure that’s roughly 15 full time positions filled for the year. Starting teacher pay in fairfax is 40k, so it’s maybe the equivalent of saving six hundred thousand dollars. Or, maybe a full time for free employee at each branch.

Libraries are important, but they should be supported by the community where possible. Then again, if you want professional, knowledgable staff (like 25% of fairfax librarian employees with masters degrees) you’ve got to pay for it.

But that certainly shouldn’t exclude the support of the community.

We’ve seen hours and book budgets shrink, but the peculiarly California touch is that there’s now a proposal to farm out the operation of the whole system to a private firm. Seems silly, but in California that gets out from under the immense burden of the Calpers public employee pension system, and would apparently yield a saving of several hundred thousand dollars a year, while still providing a profit to the contractor.

The public pension system is pretty unaccountable, and blew away a lot of money in speculative investment before the recent bubble burst.

I’m not sure privatization would really work well, but we’ve seen the existing system do pretty silly things. In our previous city (also in California), the city signed a contract with the union that barred any use of part time or volunteer staff.

That doesn’t really encourage folks to vote to provide more money.

“Ok, y’all enjoy the library. Fine. But should everyone be forced to fund your enjoyment? Sorry to be blunt about it, but, when in these tough recessionary times, a little girl goes without a publically funded novel to pass the time during her hair appointment… is it a shame?”

I think you are overfocused on the “enjoyment” word. I understand that Scalzi came at the post from the short short term perspective of keeping his daughter entertained during a hair appointment. But, this does not mean that encouraging and preserving the habit of reading in anyone is not a primary objective.

But aside from fiction and videos and video games, libraries have the resources to provide access to types of information that most people would not be able to afford in any way. Examples are things like databases, collection of journal articles, collections of primary source materials, small run or out of print nonfiction research oriented books, etc.

The Internet and digitized materials are not at parity with resources of public library systems. And many of the resources that are electronically accessible are behind paywalls prohibitively expensive for all but organizational budgets.

And, spread out across local communities the cost is much much less prohibitive. In Fairfax County Virginia (I’m sure one of the richest examples, but it’s one I know) the library budget for 2009 was around thirty million dollars. Compared to the public school budget: they are currently trying to resolve a budget shortfall for next years 3.3 Billion dollar budget larger than the library systems entire budget.

Libraries are not really where the budget issues seem to come up. Additionally, whether you are of the “essential” or “entertainment” camps their budgets aren’t really the place to look for major savings.

Some clips from their website, (http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/factsht.htm)

System Profile
Eight regional libraries, 14 community libraries, Access Services branch for people with disabilities, Fairfax County Archives, Grants & Funding Research Center, Public Services Support, and Library Administration.

Budget:
- The fiscal year 2009 Adopted Budget is $33,109,573.
- Expenditures for books and materials in fiscal year 2008 was $4,853,488.

Public Use in Fiscal Year 2009:
- 489,658 registered customers.
- 6,123,486 visits to library branches.
- 13,931,027 items loaned.
-4,206,393 visits to the library’s Internet site.
- 114,990 people attended 4,742 programs.

Staffing and Volunteers in Fiscal Year 2009:
- 527.75 full-time-equivalent (FTE) employees, including — 141.075 FTE with master’s degrees in library science.
- Volunteers donated more than 142,854.46 hours.

Other Income in Fiscal Year 2009:
- $648,741 from Virginia state aid.
- $57,163 from the City of Fairfax library services contract.

Services and Programs:
- More than 2.5 million items available for circulation to card holders
- Meet the Author programs
- Online access to library accounts, program registration, meeting room reservation, databases, moderated discussions, podcasts, downloadable books and video and a vast array of useful data
- The Center for the Book, affiliated with the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the Library of Congress
- Reference services in branches and through “Ask A Librarian” via live chat, e-mail and text message (571-247-5703)
- Early literacy outreach
Newsletters including This Month, FCPLEASE, Loud & Clear and Show of Hands
Grants & Funding Research Center

But seriously, your comeback is fail. I’m not attempting a libertarian argument. I’m making MY argument. Look carefully, I never claimed to be libertarian. Scalzi breaks out that label, not me. Regardless, I don’t care to be a REAL libertarian, in your eyes, or anyone else’s’. Nor do I feel constrained to own a particular hard-lined ideological position, as you suggest I should hold. Please try to be stealthier in your attempts to build me into your strawman.

I shall continue to create value judgments when it comes to reviewing what government does and how it taxes. I can speak for myself, try not to put words in my mouth, thank you.

Aside from your feeble attempt to mock and obfuscate, I’m not seeing an actual counter-argument from you. It’s your retort that has no game.

Ok, y’all enjoy the library. Fine. But should everyone be forced to fund your enjoyment? Sorry to be blunt about it, but, when in these tough recessionary times, a little girl goes without a publically funded novel to pass the time during her hair appointment… is it a shame?

That was my initial reaction. Struck me as gratuitous. Clearly I’m in the minority. Hate to be the fly in the library-love ointment, yet within the context of the original post, and since Scalzi announced his plans to share more thoughts later… yes, I felt it germane to chime in.

I have daughters myself. I hate it when they are disappointed. Totally understandable reaction. However, this became a library advocacy thread once everyone started down the ‘it’s crying shame, gotta change the hearts and minds of our leaders’ path. Not that Scalzi was intending to do this, but after so many activist posts it becomes a political topic rather than minor outburst about a personal frustration.

Here’s one even libertarians should like: when government says “We want to know what books our citizens are reading,” big business says “Sure, boss, here you are” and libraries say “Oh, *so* sorry, we kinda totally accidentally deleted that information already.”

When I was a teenager and went to evening things in town, the library was the safe place to hang out until I could get the bus home.

I’m a librarian now and have the internet at my fingertips. But when I wanted to find Māori science fiction books, the internet failed me. So I emailed a librarian, and got a stunningly comprehensive answer by the next day.

Databases. Reference books may be hundreds of dollars, but databases cost thousands. Tens of thousands. Sure, you *could* pay-per-article, but at $30 an article that’s a lot of dosh. From a library it’s free.

Libraries are books, and they’re internet access, but they’re also services, and programmes, and place, and community.

Jessica Dorr of the Gates Foundation last week at the LIANZA library conference in New Zealand told of a Latvian mayor who was faced in difficult economic times with funding either roads *or* a library. <hunts> This video refers to it at 5:22 – Aldis Adamovics, mayor of Preili. He chose to fund the library. And business was revitalised, and community programmes were revitalised, and kids stayed in school longer, and the economy boomed.
Want to fix the economy? Give some of that bailout money to libraries.

People have talked about three ways you can help your library: donating money, books, or volunteer time. Here’s a fourth: write, phone, email, fax, shmooze with your local government and make sure they know how important the library is to you as a tax payer; make sure they know how valuable the library is to your community.