America is About to Lose One of Its Best Public Resource: Public Libraries

[earthside]

2. An important point; but not a very good article.

The article, it seems to me goes rather astray over illiteracy and prison incarceration rates, etc.

However, we are seeing the idea and institution of our public library systems diminished in this country.

Library budgets are being cut to pay for law enforcement in many jurisdictions.

And I think this is the greatest danger -- even from liberals and progressives -- that the public library is a relic because of the internet.

Libraries are repositories of information and history and ideas; books are more than just paper and ink and/or digitalized letters on a screen -- the library is indeed a functioning symbol of civilization itself.

Here is my warning to folks: don't let the bureaucrats and cost-cutters turn your community library into a public version of a corporate bookstore where only the most popular ebooks and dvds and music are available. Your local history should be available at your community library; that edition of a Balzac novel should be available to checkout for that one curious person; a librarian should be there to help you find that odd fact from the internet or from a physical book -- that is the undefinable value of a real library.