If any VCs are listening, I’d love to pitch a startup that delivers a curated selection of news and entertainment to users’ homes on a daily or weekly basis in a unique paper-based format.
It’s not an accident that libraries are one of the 1st things that get built by any civic-minded people. The societal return on a small investment is massive.
It's so confusing to me that anyone could both want to defund libraries but also think that it's a good thing for poor people to be able to read books. Normally they know the point of defunding libraries is to *remove* access to information.
They’re either dishonest about what they want, or have their head shoved so far up into libertarian utopia thinking that they can’t function at all anymore.
The reason why is because they want those things, but not done by nor for the people they despise.
They are very much ok with public goods and services if they are segregated.
30+ years ago I had a job doing phone surveys for public libraries to find out if people were aware of what resources their local library had, which ones they used, etc. Folks in affluent areas had no idea & they'd get defensive, even angry abt admitting their ignorance of & lack of library use.
I remember reading an op-ed a few years back saying that libraries weren't needed now that we have the Internet. It was clear that the author had never been to a public library. They're dynamic spaces used by people of all ages and represent the best of our country.
Frequently see the argument " it's not like *you've* used a library since you were a school kid" which, even if that were true.. we haven't stopped making school kids. They still exist, need to read and have little money to spend on books.
Libraries are the Swiss Army knives of the community: their utility is off the charts compared to what little is spent on them… and it’s a shame if indeed we raised an adult who doesn’t know how libraries work. Librarians will set him/her straight!
Considering the tech-bros who "reinvented" the bus and the convenience store, I'm actually not that surprised by some dipstick who "reinvents" public libraries.
Tech guys are all like this. (Akin to their steadfast belief in their powers to know more than longtime experts in a field.) They back themselves into inventing things we already have—but with them getting a cut.
we have a small “miniature library” hanging outside our gate for everyone to use.
Apart from the large library here in town, there are at least 12 small libraries with books to take and not necessarily bring back
Ours contains some 60 or so books, half of them specific for kids
You aren't being fair to Ken. We could be offering a far worse service for more money if we would simply means test people checking out books at the library. Bet you feel pretty ridiculous for just writing Ken off.
Can we turn this into a library appreciation thread? I just discovered the Jefferson Market Library on 6th ave in NYC. Just look at this place, can you believe it's a library?
Here's the Library in McMinnville, TN, where I grew up. The photos in the gallery don't do it justice, either, the inside is like being in a stone cathedral filled with books. And it smells like old books.
When books were revered. The information market place of history. Are today’s data centres so majestic? Possibly. I guess we only visit those virtually.
Given what I know about the dedication of librarians to their work of preserving knowledge for the benefit of others, I have a feeling the next 5 years will turn into some variation on the theme of "Fahrenheit 451".
I have never been there, but it looks beautiful. My dream has always been to have a two-story library at home, with rolling ladders and mezzanines. I'm 72 and I'm not rich yet, so I think it will have to wait for another lifetime. Meanwhile, next time I am in Boston, I will definitely visit there.
It may not be landmark-level architecture but thrilled to have the new library in my town - 38% larger than the one it replaced, and the referendum passed by a 23% margin in a town that hasn’t gone blue since 2012. Thrilled to have this facility for my daughter to grow up with.
The NYPL library is my stop every time I visit. Their display is (to me) better than most museums. It’s incredible. Brooklyn library, with a side visit to Brooklyn botanical garden is my other fave.
I kinda assumed most pundits grew up upper middle class in the suburbs and spent a lot of time at their well financed public library looking up whatever tickled their fancy on Reading Rainbow.... but apparently that's not the case.
No; he wants to defund libraries and put the money saved toward triaging a bunch of applications for the government to buy people books (and ship them direct to their homes where it sounds like they're expected to keep them).
As per usual tempted to upload the screenshots to any wiki with an entry for man-in-the-middle attack because fuck me if it isn't the same underlying mental exercise for some people
No, he's proposing the much more efficient idea of buying individual copies of books for every person who can't afford them instead of the cumbersome idea of making centralized, staffed locations full of shared books and resources. Duh.
Okay, so my library system carries Jane’s Defence Weekly. It is more efficient for the government to buy me an $850/year subscription than for me to share that with 600,000 people?
lol I heard the efficency angle too. I mean efficiency is not what I use as an initial yardstick, but when an objective social good is also a win by their own logic... like, cmon. What are we doing here?
If Benjamin Franklin hadn't invented the public lending library and you tried to make it happen now? They wouldn't even bother to sue you, they'd just shoot you dead.
Only problem i have with libraries is i shouldn't need a special fucking degree to work in one.
I grew up in them. I spent 8 years working in a book store. Ive been able the use the card catalogue like a big boy since i was like 8. Every interview: oh you'd be great! But sorry, you need the degree.
The next four years is going to be the world's dumbest assholes laboriously reinventing every government service that has existed for a hundred years and then claiming it as a bold new discovery
It’s because these guys (let’s face it they are usually guys) are convinced they are the smartest ones in the room, and cannot fathom that others have approached these same problems, made all the mistakes that these guys haven’t even though of, and come up with solutions that actually work.
Ah, the unearned confidence of mediocre white men strikes again, I see. They always think they're the smartest in the room or have come up with something that's been around for ages or someone already thought up a long time ago.
The Communist proposal to have the government buy all the books people want but can't afford is a surprise.
Let me guess his first thought was libraries steal from authors who don't sell as many books. So he dove in head first. Probably not the first time his bell was rung. It shows.
My library has things like computers, free internet access, a 3-D printer and I can daily make free up to $5 in copies. Plus librarians who will help me find just the right book selection!
That's incredible.
The only problem with guys like that is: they invented libraries, but somewhere along the way they also propose channeling the government money through some kind of investment scheme - that some people he knows, very smart and successful people - will look after for us all.
He should suggest that plan to DOGE. So much
more efficient to buy books for every person who can’t afford them than it is to continue with the existing central book repositories that serve entire communities.🙄
Public libraries are the last place in America that you can go and the only thing that's expected of you is that you treat others with respect. Here in Cleveland you can even go to housing court at some branches. Branches stock DVDs and CDs because not everyone has internet.
Techbros and the GOP both HATE people being able to go to a place and not be sold something. Even worse when said place might let you learn something that's not been run through a right wing spin because unfortunately for them facts support a more leftward world view.
You get tutoring spaces and some have multipurpose rooms for exercise groups. There are computers and copy machines and you can fax your public assistance forms (because those offices don't use email). Need a historic photo from the CPL's massive archive? Call.
This idea of individual good overrides communal good is behind all of this
Local paper had voucher puff piece where homeschool kid bought a microscope that was thousands of voucher dollars. Which has to do with education at least, but that could be stored at library and used by hundreds of kids
Maybe it's even worse, he doesn't even seem to have the idea of a public good or infrastructure at all.
Like people who have brain injuries and become totally unaware of one side of space.
The earliest of leaders from the founders onward thought free access to information was key to a free people, because the printing press was key to how they gained independence from the monarchy and as a reason for that the monarchy regulated the press.
Libraries aren't, of course, only for people who otherwise can't afford it. They are also against waste. Why keep books you don't intend to re-read soon, have someone else have a go at it.
Libraries offer great public service at marginal costs for society. It's a no-brainer to invest in them.
I had the privilege of working for the Free Library of Philadelphia for a bit. It offers so much, well beyond books (and e/audio versions); career help, lending musical instruments, a culinary lab, so much more.
And funding is based on usage. Visit your libraries, borrow from libraries.
In addition, I discovered once I started at FLP, the system used to track physical borrowing dumps data once the material is returned. (E-borrowing is likely different!)
If someone requests to know the physical books/materials you've borrowed, that data doesn't exist.
OMG And libraries are so much more than books. Our library serves as a community hub. Older people go there to find social time together. Parents bring their Littles to play in the play area with the books. After school tutors meet kids there. People who need access to computers can.
1) Manufacture perceived issue
2) Campaign on fixing issue
3) Implement exact same thing that was already there
4) Claim victory
Not to mention to attack libraries is a direct attack on education and an undereducated populace is an easily manipulated populace.
This is the most concise explanation of what they’re trying to do to everything in our country right now. Either this, or just erase services entirely.
Trump's attack on libraries is going to upset millions of people. Our town's Mid-Hudson inter-library loan system is going to collapse, and lots of people use it. Each town has a small library, but together the towns are big, and the federal government used to pay for most of that. Used to.
This is the same kind of stupidity I ran into when I ran a program that centralized buying and providing access to third-party technology rather than every single team or individual in the company who wanted it buying it themselves
Reminds me of the time when we had a debate in my speech class in San Francisco over whether or not the state should provide free abortions and the No side's argument was "We don't need these, we already have MediCal" 🤦♀️
I’m not on the bad place. What did he say? That instead of funding libraries people should request individual books and the state will mail them to them? Or make them available for pick-up? At maybe a public building?
so he's suggesting replacing libraries with something means-tested? if you're making 1.5x the poverty line or below, we'll waitlist you to get some middle grade paperbacks by the time your kid graduates high school?
I’m envisioning Netflix for books but each distribution center you can walk around in and browse, oh and there’s no monthly fees. I think this is a groundbreaking disruptive idea.
Wait! If we used tax dollars to buy the books that people want to read, we could save money by having people share the books that we buy for them!!!!!!
Maybe put them in a big building together to save those people time and coordination issues? Probably with the savings there we could even hire some kind of books caretaker.
And we could get big companies to sponsor it, and we'd name it after them, like "The Coca-Cola Reading Room"! And then they could charge entry fees to make sure that these places were self-funding, and not just sucking off the taxpayers' teat, and...
Wow. I watched a Jubilee the other day where an anti DEI person righteously insisted that federal agencies only participate in DEI "to get a tax break." Federal agencies. Getting tax breaks. 🥺
Comments
I call it Nüspapr.
They do reinvent trains often in the US - the problem is they never also build them.
They are very much ok with public goods and services if they are segregated.
Basic elements that we see in every functioning society are debatable to them.
They are exhausting.
Oh wait, they already tried
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/06/lyft-reinvents-the-bus.html
That white male privilege isn't a thing.
The cost of just buying them all and the space to store them all would just be daft.
“Uh, the bus…?
https://www.fetii.com
To them, everything that came before was bad, or poorly conceived, and only their smartest ideas are the right way.
I’ve met hundreds of them. They truly think this way.
Apart from the large library here in town, there are at least 12 small libraries with books to take and not necessarily bring back
Ours contains some 60 or so books, half of them specific for kids
https://magnesslibrary.net/
Felt like descending into a dungeon to me as a kid. Was awesome.
Look how the shelves are arranged. Covers out!
Yeah yeah, it would more efficient to arrange them spine out, but look at them!
I bet so many more people grab them of the shelves
People really like looking at pretty covers (and we don't blame them).
new version
"The commonwealth requires the education of the people as the safeguard of order and liberty."
#nationallibraryweek
#democracy
#education
#lifelonglearning
#accesstoinformatiom
#communityresource
#publiclibrary
Carl Köhler (1919-2006) authorportraits around major US & Canadian libraries.
sharing books? that's communism.
let's buy everyone their own copy instead.
Imagine running into you here ;) it truly is a small world. 💪❤️
Which also causes prices for other people to go way up; because they primarily only have people with money as customers now
as an adult, i haven't used the libraries much, but as a kid, spent 10-15 hours/week there reading or homeworking or both.
Is it US foods that eats away braincells with fools like him?
I grew up in them. I spent 8 years working in a book store. Ive been able the use the card catalogue like a big boy since i was like 8. Every interview: oh you'd be great! But sorry, you need the degree.
Let me guess his first thought was libraries steal from authors who don't sell as many books. So he dove in head first. Probably not the first time his bell was rung. It shows.
My library has things like computers, free internet access, a 3-D printer and I can daily make free up to $5 in copies. Plus librarians who will help me find just the right book selection!
The only problem with guys like that is: they invented libraries, but somewhere along the way they also propose channeling the government money through some kind of investment scheme - that some people he knows, very smart and successful people - will look after for us all.
more efficient to buy books for every person who can’t afford them than it is to continue with the existing central book repositories that serve entire communities.🙄
I can check out a pressure washer or a carney-style popcorn machine.
Oh, I see the problem here. You're still on Twitter. Easy solution. Get off Twitter.
Local paper had voucher puff piece where homeschool kid bought a microscope that was thousands of voucher dollars. Which has to do with education at least, but that could be stored at library and used by hundreds of kids
Like people who have brain injuries and become totally unaware of one side of space.
Libraries offer great public service at marginal costs for society. It's a no-brainer to invest in them.
My GREAT aunt was a librarian for 60 years!
These people are just unbelievable. My god.
And funding is based on usage. Visit your libraries, borrow from libraries.
If someone requests to know the physical books/materials you've borrowed, that data doesn't exist.
They do it every time they start to think about transportation for even 45 seconds.
And paying Elon for a checkmark??
2) Campaign on fixing issue
3) Implement exact same thing that was already there
4) Claim victory
Not to mention to attack libraries is a direct attack on education and an undereducated populace is an easily manipulated populace.
What if there was some sort of building that people could go to research things if they wanted
This is the same kind of stupidity I ran into when I ran a program that centralized buying and providing access to third-party technology rather than every single team or individual in the company who wanted it buying it themselves
He seems to want to make sure only the deserving poor can use the books
/ˌɪnəˈveɪʃn/
noun
the action or process of making what we already have but somehow so much worse
no? what? Sorry, I'll come in again.
The odd few yes to keep a look 👀 out but loads of blues are on there