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To Restore Civil Society, Start with the Library

nytimes.com

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Re: To Restore Civil Society, Start with the Library

#101

Post by tehwebguy »

eftychis wrote: post #100
Alex3917 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> STEM exists because science, technology, engineering, and math don't get the focus they need in the standard US education system. Pretty much every HS kid in America is required to take at least 3 full years of math and science if not 4. How exactly are they not getting the focus over art? Schools are cutting art programs left and right in order to allocate more resources toward things that get covered on standardi…

3? (Kind of Sarcastic) wow! Every single year/quarter of a person's basic education includes math and science (physics and then biology and chemistry, then a bit of cs) where I am from. Thus, worst case scenario a person has spent 9 years on that stuff (among other topics sure). Sure I can see art does not get a lot of focus from what you are saying and I do not have experience in your system to say what the balance…

FYI HS is “high school” which is only 4 years long

Re: To Restore Civil Society, Start with the Library

#102

Post by 3rdAccount »

Alex3917 wrote: post #87
3rdAccount wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh...not a big fan of "STEAM" as opposed to "STEM". STEM exists because science, technology, engineering, and math don't get the focus they need in the standard US education system. There is also the arts of music, and drawing/painting/crafts, P.E., History, Literature that are still important, but take the focus away. If you say...well STEM is important, but let's not forget art, pretty soon you'll say well we als…

> STEM exists because science, technology, engineering, and math don't get the focus they need in the standard US education system. Pretty much every HS kid in America is required to take at least 3 full years of math and science if not 4. How exactly are they not getting the focus over art? Schools are cutting art programs left and right in order to allocate more resources toward things that get covered on standardi…

Probably because taking 1 Math and 1 science a year is not nearly enough in the modern economy.

I went to a really good high school and took all AP courses and was still blown away in college by those who came from schools with strong STEM programs. When I was struggling with robotics, programming, circuits, CAD work (small portion of the freshman engineering curriculum) they had very little trouble. Why? They had 4 years of engineering classes in high school which covered those subjects. They got to substitute many of their other classes out (classes which I would say are valuable, but less valuable). That is the value of STEM. When I was struggling freshman year i would have gladly traded my art, Spanish, physical education...etc classes for classes which would have better prepared me. I ended up graduating on time with a pretty good GPA, but it was more work than it had to be.

Re: To Restore Civil Society, Start with the Library

#103

Post by jhbadger »

housingpost wrote: post #2

I love the idea of libraries, but where I live most of them are almost as bad as public transportation. People fighting, being loud, people on drugs asking for money, so it's difficult to get comfortable to sit and read. Sadly you have to go to the suburbs to get a quiet library where you don't get hassled. Amazon certainly isn't the solution, but neither is having libraries be the daytime homeless shelter.

Is it actually your experience of these things or is it just what you've been told? As somebody who lives in a big US city which my Midwestern small-town relatives sees as "scary", I use public transit daily and the library weekly. There aren't really any druggies or panhandlers on the buses or trains or libraries. There are some on the actual streets, and that's unfortunate, but not nearly the degree that all the "urban blight" movies from the 1970s and 1980s suggested.

Re: To Restore Civil Society, Start with the Library

#104

Post by tehwebguy »

fipple wrote: post #97
moorhosj wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a source for “normal people don’t use libraries anymore”? I live in Chicago and our libraries are pretty consistently packed with people of all ages, incomes, living situations, etc.

I don’t take my kid to the library because of the homeless people there. I don’t oppose government funds being used to provide daytime facilities for homeless people, I just don’t think it should be at the same location as the kids library.

Good call, you wouldn’t want to have to teach your kid to tolerate a world where desperately poor also exist and have access to... anything

Re: To Restore Civil Society, Start with the Library

#105

Post by Tomte »

buckminster wrote: post #55
keithpeter wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Librarians are pretty brutal about shelf space and 'discards' are ruthless and based on readership as you noticed. In UK most public libraries will offer to get a book in on the 'inter-library loan' system - there is usually a charge. University libraries ( https://copac.jisc.ac.uk/ ) are (mostly) accessible through this system. The other strategy would be to try to increase readership of philosophy books perhaps sta…

In the last ten years the inter-library loan charge here has increased from £2 to £10. Second hand is often cheaper.

That's really expensive.

Around here the standard seems to be €2.50, and I recently found a library in my neighborhood that only takes €1.50.

I haven't used ILL too much in the past, but I recently decided that lending before buying only those books that are worth it will save me a lot of money.

Re: To Restore Civil Society, Start with the Library

#106

Post by tehwebguy »

fipple wrote: post #97
moorhosj wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a source for “normal people don’t use libraries anymore”? I live in Chicago and our libraries are pretty consistently packed with people of all ages, incomes, living situations, etc.

I don’t take my kid to the library because of the homeless people there. I don’t oppose government funds being used to provide daytime facilities for homeless people, I just don’t think it should be at the same location as the kids library.

I guess my other comment was rightly flagged so here’s a non sarcastic version:

Why don’t you think it’s ok for homeless people to use the same library as kids?

Re: To Restore Civil Society, Start with the Library

#107

Post by pbhjpbhj »

flyinghamster wrote: post #98
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this in USA, how does state provision of such services pair with USAmerican hatred of communism? Libraries, tool-shares, hackerspaces and such seem to be the epitomy of communism.

Communism? When did communism enter the picture? This is in Illinois; the public library district is primarily funded by local taxes within its service area, and referenda on such were passed on multiple occasions. Some state and federal grants have also funded tech improvements. Its current land was purchased from the local school district in the 1970s. Overall, regardless of today's bullshit political climate on th…

Libraries are inherently anti-capitalist; they make knowledge available to all regardless of ability to pay. A system of community ownership of resources in order to benefit all members is the definition of "communist": that's where it enters the picture.

>the municipally-owned water system charges significantly lower rates than a neighboring town's privately-owned water system //

Which, as far as stereotypes goes at least, is "un-American, are you some sort of commie?" because it's a cooperative governmental system in which state ownership reduces costs and prevents a private enterprise from profiting from it.

Some interesting answers, including yours, thanks.

Re: To Restore Civil Society, Start with the Library

#108

Post by pbhjpbhj »

st26 wrote: post #47
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this in USA, how does state provision of such services pair with USAmerican hatred of communism? Libraries, tool-shares, hackerspaces and such seem to be the epitomy of communism.

It's the co-op model, which USA generally has no problems with as long as it's elective, e.g. you aren't forced to depend on it.

It's different to a co-op model as you don't have to individually buy in, it's provided as a function of the state, no? Are their commonly private [non-state run] libraries in USA that you can become a member of, I'd guess not, which makes your claim about election/forced dependency seem strange (in context, though it might work more generally).

Re: To Restore Civil Society, Start with the Library

#109

Post by [deleted] »

housingpost wrote: post #2

I love the idea of libraries, but where I live most of them are almost as bad as public transportation. People fighting, being loud, people on drugs asking for money, so it's difficult to get comfortable to sit and read. Sadly you have to go to the suburbs to get a quiet library where you don't get hassled. Amazon certainly isn't the solution, but neither is having libraries be the daytime homeless shelter.

[deleted]

Re: To Restore Civil Society, Start with the Library

#110

Post by TheCoelacanth »

tehwebguy wrote: post #101
eftychis wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3? (Kind of Sarcastic) wow! Every single year/quarter of a person's basic education includes math and science (physics and then biology and chemistry, then a bit of cs) where I am from. Thus, worst case scenario a person has spent 9 years on that stuff (among other topics sure). Sure I can see art does not get a lot of focus from what you are saying and I do not have experience in your system to say what the balance…

FYI HS is “high school” which is only 4 years long

Also, prior to high school, kids are usually taking math and science classes at all times, so the absolute maximum would be one year without math and science.
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