There Are No Free Libraries

[brooklynite]

American Libraries Magazine:

Over the past few months, an image has been making its way around social media to underscore the value of libraries. It’s a checkout receipt from “your local library” that lists various borrowed items—three DVDs, five books, one ebook, six CDs—and the cost to the borrower for each, all of which are $0. Below the grand total of zero at the bottom of the receipt is the image’s take-home message: “Having a library card? Priceless.”



It’s one of several recent examples I’ve noticed in which libraries are characterized as being available at no cost to their users. Library marketing campaigns promote materials and services as “Free @ your library.” Freegal, a popular subscription download service available through some libraries, presents itself through its very name (free + legal) as a lawful no-cost source for digital music files. The American Library Association’s State of America’s Libraries Report 2012 repeatedly extols the importance of free library services, particularly during this time of economic downturn. As it states, “Americans are becoming ever more keenly aware that libraries are prime sources for free access to books, magazines, ebooks, DVDs, the internet, and professional assistance.”

Of course, the concept is not new. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the term “free libraries” differentiated libraries that were fully open to the public from the subscription libraries of the day, which were available exclusively to paying members. The “free library” model is the cornerstone of modern libraries, no matter how they are funded, so long as they are committed to assisting anyone who wishes to use materials or seeks an answer to a question. (Unrestricted access was so central to the founding mission of Philadelphia’s public library system that it remains prominently reflected in its name: Free Library of Philadelphia.)

But libraries, as we know, do not exist for free. They cost their communities—whether composed of taxpayers, tuition-payers, donors, or a combination—a substantial amount of money. It’s well-intentioned to emphasize that libraries provide materials and services without exacting immediate payment from users for each transaction. But today it is at best a mistake and at worst self-destructive to underrepresent the considerable ongoing investment that the members of a community make to have library collections, technology, personnel, and facilities available to them.

[marybourg]

1. Yeah. Like we thought "free" to the user means

libraries sprang from the ground unassissted and are filled and staffed by elves in the night. Well, on second thought . . .

[Igel]

4. There are such people.

If they don't have to pay out-of-pocket costs, they're fairly oblivious to anybody else's out-of-pocket costs.

When you pick up a book that's been damaged or a DVD/CD that's been rendered pretty much unusable, you know there's a person that simply assumed that "somebody" would replace it. No skin off their nose, and theirs is the only nose that matters.

[Phentex]

2. The last sentence is the most important to me...

"That doesn’t mean libraries are free. It means that the cost of libraries is worth every cent."

[Aristus]

3. I'm willing to bet that most people who use public libraries are aware that there is a cost involved

For most of us: a local or municiple tax of some sort.

For me: small price to pay. I earn enough to buy just about any book I want. I just don't want to own every book I want to read. I love libraries, and librarians are on my list of everyday heroes.