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The last thing libraries need is Silicon Valley “disruption.”

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Re: The last thing libraries need is Silicon Valley “disruption.”

#221

Post by djhworld »

Sharlin wrote: post #9
chris_mc wrote: post #2

If you think libraries are useless, try going to one a few times and talk to the staff about the services they provide. I'd personally say libraries are one of the government organizations with the best return on investment, because education and information are almost invaluable. I'll fight a war over libraries, no joke.

Last time I read a library-related discussion on HN, one of the sentiments expressed was basically ”I download ebooks, why would anyone need a library?” Boggles the mind. There was also a bizarre comment about libraries being only funded to keep a bunch of otherwise useless civil servants employed.

> ”I download ebooks, why would anyone need a library?”

The "I'm alright jack" mentality

Re: The last thing libraries need is Silicon Valley “disruption.”

#222

Post by zjaffee »

Sharlin wrote: post #9
chris_mc wrote: post #2

If you think libraries are useless, try going to one a few times and talk to the staff about the services they provide. I'd personally say libraries are one of the government organizations with the best return on investment, because education and information are almost invaluable. I'll fight a war over libraries, no joke.

Last time I read a library-related discussion on HN, one of the sentiments expressed was basically ”I download ebooks, why would anyone need a library?” Boggles the mind. There was also a bizarre comment about libraries being only funded to keep a bunch of otherwise useless civil servants employed.

The answer is because many libraries provide not only free access to ebooks, but you can also often time get actual e-readers on loan from them.

Re: The last thing libraries need is Silicon Valley “disruption.”

#223

Post by Djvacto »

Kalium wrote: post #175
Djvacto wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to politifact[1], education spending accounts for just 3% of all government spending (mandatory and discretionary). Using libraries as the target for cuts so that we can feed the school-children, and citing logic, is ignoring a lot of other much more 'logical' choices we can make first. Military spending (16%), or Health spending, which is a whopping 28% because of our horse-by-committee system here in the…

It's worth bearing in mind that as education is primarily a state responsibility, the vast majority of education spending is at state and local levels. Libraries also tend to be budgeted for mainly below the federal level and thus mostly don't show up in the federal budget. The Politifact article you have so wisely provided speaks solely and exclusively to the federal budget. You're absolutely correct that education…

That's a good point! Most of the funding does come from the lower levels of government, and is worth bearing in mind.

Re: The last thing libraries need is Silicon Valley “disruption.”

#224

Post by Djvacto »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #181
Djvacto wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to politifact[1], education spending accounts for just 3% of all government spending (mandatory and discretionary). Using libraries as the target for cuts so that we can feed the school-children, and citing logic, is ignoring a lot of other much more 'logical' choices we can make first. Military spending (16%), or Health spending, which is a whopping 28% because of our horse-by-committee system here in the…

Education is a wonderful return on tax investment that a lot of these people claiming "we spend too much on it" don't take into account. Just a quick example: How many of these libraries allow poor/low income/homeless to learn new skills or use their free internet to find jobs they wouldn't otherwise be able to find, in the end becoming tax paying contributing members of society? They are an invaluable community reso…

I definitely agree.

Re: The last thing libraries need is Silicon Valley “disruption.”

#225

Post by Fomite »

brianzelip wrote: post #27

Libraries provide lots of value for non-“impoverished, underserved, and most vulnerable populations” too. I manage a maker space in an academic library on a health sciences campus. I collaborate with researchers to bring new ideas to life, and provide free public workshops around emerging technologies (for example, creating a 3D printable anatomical model from CT scan data, leveraging GitHub for scholarship, and more…

I make all my graduate students make an appointment with a research librarian when they start working on their dissertation.

I may have told one of them, in a fairly serious tone, that "Librarians know the deep magics." Because man a good librarian will solve all kinds of problems you didn't even know you had.

...I have a meeting with one on Monday to talk about archiving a government website that went down due to budget cuts, taking one of the most comprehensive collections of clinical guidelines down with it.

Re: The last thing libraries need is Silicon Valley “disruption.”

#226

Post by Fomite »

FrozenVoid wrote: post #193

If libraries are so good, why students in US pay fortunes for books they need for studying?

Many libraries keep several copies of major course textbooks available. They can't however maintain potentially hundreds of copies of each book, so demand swamps them pretty fast.

Re: The last thing libraries need is Silicon Valley “disruption.”

#227

Post by tooltalk »

geebee wrote: post #12

I'm largely in agreement with this Vox piece, but I think there's much more to say in defense of libraries as well. I have a friend who found a red envelope with some money in it in a book that he'd checked out of the library. He figured it belonged to whoever had checked the book out earlier, so he went into the branch and mentioned it. They said that they could find out the last person to read the book, but no more…

This is probably not true at most libraries. I used to work at one of the largest library systems in the country and they had patrons' checkout logs for at least a full-decade (in a poorly designed, insecure database system, now outsourced to a managed provider at a great cost $1M+ per year). I also don't believe they had patrons' privacy or data security as their priority -- most libraries simply never had the kind of technical competence to protect such data.

Re: The last thing libraries need is Silicon Valley “disruption.”

#228

Post by JumpCrisscross »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #181
Djvacto wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to politifact[1], education spending accounts for just 3% of all government spending (mandatory and discretionary). Using libraries as the target for cuts so that we can feed the school-children, and citing logic, is ignoring a lot of other much more 'logical' choices we can make first. Military spending (16%), or Health spending, which is a whopping 28% because of our horse-by-committee system here in the…

Education is a wonderful return on tax investment that a lot of these people claiming "we spend too much on it" don't take into account. Just a quick example: How many of these libraries allow poor/low income/homeless to learn new skills or use their free internet to find jobs they wouldn't otherwise be able to find, in the end becoming tax paying contributing members of society? They are an invaluable community reso…

> Education is a wonderful return on tax investment

Eh, I see both sides of the coin. Education is a great place to spend money. But American governments are really good at throwing money at things that look like education, but do very little in terms of measurable gains.

Case in point: my Cupertino public high school now has ten times the number of assistant principals as it did when I attended, but maybe 10% more students.

Re: The last thing libraries need is Silicon Valley “disruption.”

#229

Post by Fomite »

pravinva wrote: post #182

Can someone explain why a librarian needs to study library science,if the primary job of libraries today now is to act as a community center and a place for people in trouble to get help. Maybe they should hire people who are social workers

Library science can include, but is not limited to:

- Setting up and maintaining the kinds of programs people are talking about, be that resume editing or maker spaces, etc.

- The finding and sorting of information. Note that's constantly one of the problems mentioned in the article - it's not just access to the internet, but the ability to use it to find very specific information.

Re: The last thing libraries need is Silicon Valley “disruption.”

#230

Post by [deleted] »

egypturnash wrote: post #161
BurningFrog wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me steelman that argument. Libraries were invented because information was only available on printed (or hand written) books, which were very expensive and scarce resources. Now information can be available almost literally for free and instantly, to anywhere. If the institutional inertia of libraries didn't exist today, would they really be invented as they are? https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Steel_man

Did you RTFA before you jumped into the comments? Here, let me give you a quote. > Just this week, a woman stopped by our desk because she needed to be taught how to open a new tab in an internet browser. She returned a few minutes later and said, “Please write ‘stomach ache’ on this piece of paper for me. I don’t know to spell it.” The man waiting behind her had no idea how to open an internet browser to begin his f…

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