PUBLIC library goes PRIVATE!

[serryjw]

Why is it nothing surprises me. Everyday they chip away at this country brick by brick. The famous public library will now be private and WHOM is going to decide what books to carry?

quote........
Library firm ready to take reins: Council to decide whether to negotiate management deal
By Scott Mobley, Record Searchlight
July 16, 2006

Redding will likely push ahead Tuesday with plans to tap a private, for-profit firm to run the new main library and its two branches.

The Shasta Library Foundation and other core booster groups support privatizing management, saying the move will expand operating hours and catapult the long-suffering library system into the 21st-century vanguard of customer-driven book lending.

end quote.......
http://www.redding.com/redd/nw_local/article/0,2232,REDD_17533_4848033,00.html

[Nikki Stone 1]

1. This is really awful--the public system has been bled dry

and led into the arms of the vultures.

[me b zola]

23. Same with public television. n/t

[NYC]

2. Private = profit motive.

There are a few private libraries in Manhattan. All of them require that you pay.

Only the public library is free.

[serryjw]

3. YOU PAY WHAT??

To take out a book? Please tell me you're kidding...talk about dumbing down america.

[longship]

4. Benjamin Franklin rolls over in his grave!!!

Benjamin Franklin formed the first public library in the United States.

If this is a trend, free reading will be over.

[BrotherBuzz]

15. I think Andrew Carnegie is the one that should be rolling in his grave

Ben Franklin's library was public but it was a subscription library.

The Library Company of Philadelphia was founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin and a group of his friends (the Junto) as a means to settle arguments. The subscription library was born. A subscription library allowed individuals to buy "shares." The money raised from the sale of shares went into buying more books. A member or shareholder then had rights to use the library.

[tkadmin]

5. PUBLIC library goes PRIVATE!

I'd love to be a fly on the wall reading the list of materials
that "customers aren't showing much interest in that kind
of stuff anymore."

[serryjw]

6. Welcome to DU

...then after they scale done the book list they can REDUCE the hours since no one comes anyway.

[Disturbed]

8. Renting recent Best Sellers for $1 per week

is now at a local library. Will that be a widespead ongoing trend?

[raccoon]

34. I've seen that at a local library too. nt

[NMMNG]

7. America is going to hell in a handbasket

Eventually it will truly only be the rich who will be able to learn, as the poor will have no access to reading materials. :cry:

[Erika]

11. The poor will be given the Bible and told they will get their

rewards when they die. It's been an effective tool forever to keep the workers controlled and low paid.

[serryjw]

12. What is so sick, is you are

absolutely right.

[Erika]

14. What is sick is that the rich are knowingly using the poor

for their profits while telling them God will reward them in the end. In the end is a good term.

[serryjw]

17. This doesn't sound like a good investment

after a lifetime who is going to pay to rent book? Is this a scheme to end up closing them all together?

[WinkyDink]

30. Do RW'ers want people to read books? Think about it.

No, they don't. Readers ask questions. Readers might read books not vetted by Bushco. Readers might read Darwin.

[NMMNG]

16. Indeed

I weep for the future. I'm also sick over it.

[madfloridian]

9. We fought this in Florida in 2003. State library was going to NOVA

University in South Florida. I don't know what finally happened. We tried, had rallies, and meetings in Tally, but nothing.

[w4rma]

10. How the heck do they think they'll make money off this? (nt)

[kestrel91316]

20. Uh, probably by having a REALLY BIG used book sale and diverting

the materials budget for CEO pay packages........and cutting their hours back to 10-11 AM Tuesdays and 3-4 PM Thursdays.

How else????

[formercia]

33. Their buddies will get a private preview sale

all the good books will be gone before the public gets in.

[The Count]

13. All education headed same way. No child left behind. All raptured.

Outright stealing the nation's wealth and welfare.

[lostnfound]

18. I've been waiting for this to happen.

Here in Houston they've got a couple of main branches closed for renovation. My pessimistic side suspects that as soon as they 've invested in the renovation, they will turn around and privatize it. We do have a Democratic mayor, so I hope (and assume) that I'm completely wrong. But I've been fully expecting that libraries would be the next target.

[Swamp Rat]

19. Fahrenheit 451... Ask them if you can have all the books they plan to ban.

We will have to start our own libraries and memorize the books before many are destroyed.

[Hekate]

21. I can't count how many adults I know who found refuge in libraries as kids

I know so many who experienced the public library as a refuge and lifeline that fed their hungry, hungry minds when what little money their folks had was needed to feed their bodies.

In addition, over and over I have read authors in this country extolling the public library as the place they got their start.

The business model is the wrong paradigm for running libraries, just as it is the wrong paradigm for running schools and hospitals....

Sad beyond words.

Hekate

[ikojo]

24. I was one of those kids

During the summer, I'd bicycle to the main library and read the New York Times and the New Yorker. Not only was it a refuge but it was a place I could go to keep cool.

[Skittles]

31. me, me

we weren't destitute but a military enlisted man's pay doesn't stretch far enough to support six kids (we were never hungry but you know, just not a lot of EXTRA stuff) - I would never had satisfied my voracious appetite for reading without the library

[Skarbrowe]

22. The Library in a small Indiana town I left several years ago was the BEST!

When I still lived there, I would have visitors from many big cities and they could not believe how wonderful our small town library was. We did have a very dedicated community of donors, so it did not depend all that much on government money. I had several T-shirts, because I would buy one every year, that said "Friends of the Library" on them. I have to admit, we were blessed with many wonderful people in the town who possibly left a few large endowments, but a lot of the money came from just us regular working class people who knew we could go to this library and get a book on just about anything. It was extremely liberal, if you know what I mean. No censorship of any kind went on and the people running the library had truly eclectic taste on what books they purchased. It was beautifully built and had the land that was left around it turned into an absolutely wonderful park.

I would get about 15 books a week just for my Mom while I was living with her until her last days. They got personal use computers in faster than some larger libraries. This was the mid to late 80's. As of 1999 they were completely computerized on everything.

I haven't seen it since 1999. I hope it hasn't fallen into this horrible situation mentioned in this post. There doesn't seem to be too many days that go by that I don't mention that library. The ones where I live now are not worth walking through the door. And this is a big, big, big city.

I've been thinking about that town so much lately, I should just move back there. Wonder if I could afford the winter heating bills? Hmmmm.

[B Calm]

27. I have a library card from a small Indiana town. You described

four librarys all within approx. 15 miles from my house in the country. The real beauty of my library card is I can use it at all four librarys.

[Skarbrowe]

28. Hmmm. Maybe we're talking about the same place. :)

I doubt it, but I do remember that you could use the card in all libraries in the county. It wasn't a very large county. Anyway, it's nice, isn't it?

[B Calm]

29. We don't have a park around the library. But, it's one of the newest

libraries in the state. The neighboring Fountain county allows us (Warren county) to use their libraries.

[Hekate]

25. My town voted itself a tax increase to keep from cutting library hours

This was a few years back, and it looked like library days and hours were going to have to be cut as a cost-saving measure.

When the voting public was given the option of a tax increase to keep the libraries open, we taxed ourselves. I think you have to give people the facts (one of which is public libraries run on tax money), and you have to have a group of activists to come up with a plan and publicize it so it gets on the ballot.

In spite of all the reflexive whining people do about taxes, when given the option of a line-item tax increase for something in the public good, they will often do the right thing.

Remember the damn neocons want to "starve the beast" (all government functions) and then claim they are run by incompetents and never worked right anyway. It doesn't have to be this way.

Hekate

[WCGreen]

26. I wonder how many copies of Coulter they will have on hand...

And how many copies of Franken...

Or will they subscribe to the Limbaugh Letter and not The Nation....

[bklyncowgirl]

32. Privatization is a big trend in public libraries--not good for workers.

As a library administrator, it's clear to me that most of their cost savings seem to come out of the benefits & wages for their workers. Librarians--who they need to attract--will get paid more. Clerical workers, who can be recruited locally, will get paid less. Everyone will get screwed on benefits.

Centralized ordering, cataloging & processing of materials is pretty common. Most library patrons will no doubt be delighted--they'll get those bestsellers fast because the centralized ordering will insure that they buy in bulk and centralized processing & cataloging mean's they'll arrive ready to be put on the shelf. The down side is that patrons with more unusual tastes & interests will not be thrilled and there'll be alot less attention paid to local interests.

As a librarian, I tend to like the idea of outsourcing cataloging and processing (I haven't implemented these as much as I'd like to in my library because of intense staff opposition--when certain people retire we may do so--good catalogers are hard to find and harder to justify for a small library) I draw the line at centralized ordering. You have to know your public and unless your goal is the most generic sort of collection you have to select locally.

[lonestarnot]

35. uhmm... excuse me, but this isn't good for anyone in America, but rich

people.

[bklyncowgirl]

40. I totally agree. This community will end up with much poorer service.

The problem is that many of them will not notice until they want something a bit out of the ordinary.

I was by no means defending privatization.

[eppur_se_muova]

36. "CUSTOMER-DRIVEN" book lending? Like network TV is "viewer-driven"?

Expect the same results. A rapid descent to the lowest levels of taste. Piles and piles of escapist light fiction, nothing of substance. More and more opiates for the masses. Provides the "circuses" in "bread and circuses".

[BuhByeChimp]

37. I once had a library tell me that...

I could not check out more than two books until I had checked out a total of 10 books.

Thinking it was a stupid rule, I told them I was just going to check out and return two books five times right then and there. Needless to say they balked at that idea and I wasn't really in the mood to fight them on it.

[bklyncowgirl]

38. As a librarian I apologize.

To give them the benefit of a doubt, they may have had a very low materials budget and extremely concerned about patrons proving themselves reliable before allowing them to check out multiple volumes, but, unfortunately my profession, like every profession, attracts its share of power mad martinets.

[tinfoil tiaras]

39. I didn't know there were such things as private libraries...

I thought it was just private schools and the libraries in the private schools would be the private libraries...

You learn something new everyday, I guess.

[conflictgirl]

41. Oh, great.

It seems nothing is safe from privatization anymore.

And, this also makes me wonder if my plan to go to grad school in library science is a bad idea. I keep having to come up with new plans for grad programs based on what I hope will be employable, with good wages and benefits and low risk of outsourcing. It seems there may not be any such careers anymore.

[LWolf]

42. While America yawns and changes the channel.

Libraries are living vessels of information, and privatization puts large bodies of information under corporate control. The significance of that move seems to escape the majority.

What do California's citizens and Democratic politicians have to say about this?

[Odin2005]

43. OMFG

:cry:


How much you want to make a bet that the good-but-rarely-read books will be sold and replaced by crap? :mad: