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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.

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In defense of libraries...

I was recently looking for a place to work on a dev project over the course of a few weeks. I looked into various co-working facilities and all of them were hundreds of dollars a month and tried to emulate trendy startup culture, down to the noisy open-office layouts, on-tap kombucha and mixer events. It was a nightmare. On a lark, I went to the local library. It was free, quiet and had rock-solid wifi. It was perfect.

The local library where I live (Sydney suburb), when I tried reading there - after abandoning reading in parks because full of roaming people on mobile phones - was interrupted every minute by someone running out yelling I'M IN THE LIBRARY! HANG ON! into their phone. :-(

They sold off/gave away all their books and music that aren't borrowed so much, i.e. most of what was good. They have about 5 books on philosophy, and a whole aisle on christianity...

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 starting with texts accessible to the teenager age range (Sophie's World?, the various comic book options?)

It's years since I was in a library, the one where I lived was getting worse for a while. The stock of books was decreasing and the staff were resorting to displaying them in a manner that made this less obvious such as some books being displayed face out to take up more space. Where I live now, I'm twenty miles from the nearest, not very good library, and never go there.

Yeah, the one I grew up with (and worked at in 2005), I revisited around 2010 and it kinda hurt to see just how much they'd gotten rid of. Not only had a large number of shelves been removed for a new bank of computers, the remaining ones were relatively bare like you describe. Probably only had around half the number of books it used to, and this was after they'd built an annex and tripled in size in the late 90s.

Wasn't long after that I moved away and haven't had an urge to go back to any library.

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.

As I understand it, they've effectively been displaced there. As other places they can go have been closed off to them, they end up looking for an alternative dry, sheltered place where it's possible to sit down and even wash; the library. It would be a real shame if libraries shut down as a side-effect of other cuts to public services.

If you're homeless, (in the UK) you can wash and keep dry in a shopping centre (mall) which will have far better facilities.

The only caveat being you have to not look or act like a homeless person and you must treat the place and other people with respect. Sadly, a lot of homeless people don't seem able to do this.

Disclosure: been there, done it.

To be fair, it's not the fault of libraries if society offers no more humane options for the homeless than to hang out there... nor is it the fault of the homeless.

No, but it is the fault of libraries if they fail to enforce reasonable standards of behavior on the premises.

What do you expect a librarian – who is, after all, not a trained security guard – to do besides simply call the police? And in so many of the examples that I see people complain about, it would seem that the disruption by homeless people or drug users is only noticed after it has taken place (e.g. they trash the toilets or leave needles or paraphenalia behind).

Libraries can hire security (and most around me have).

It’s a sad outcome in it means less funds for library services but it’s better than libraries not being used because people feel unsafe.

What an odd "problem". I would expect the librarian to call the police. And if there was a "trained security guard" on the premises I would expect him to also call the police.

(That's why we have police.)

Well, you can't rely on police for everything. I mean, they aren't your personal dobermen.

Clearly you haven't encountered the Police in the UK. Unless it's a life or death emergency situation the default response is often one of disinterest.

In the UK, problems in libraries are usually not homeless people.

Care to share what the problems with libraries in the UK are then?

People for whom manners and respect of other people are alien concepts. In the UK, their numbers are growing at an alarming rate, mainly because there is so little done to sanction such behavior.

Is it the best option we can provide to them with that money though.

Why can't we just admit that they are homeless shelters and turn them into fulltime homeless shelter instead of pretending to be a library( for whatever sentimental reasons). Seems like we got the worst of both worlds in this case.

It isn't necessarily their fault, but it still feels false to wax poetically about the educational and societial benefits of what is effectively a homeless shelter.

Not to say that homeless shelters aren't useful to society. Obviously they are. I just doubt that this is what library proponents were thinking about when they talk about libraries.

>but it still feels false to wax poetically about the educational and societial benefits of what is effectively a homeless shelter.

Bridges and overpasses also shelter the homeless sometimes, but their other benefits remain intact, and not all libraries are "effectively homeless shelters."

Indeed those things are both homeless shelters and provide other societal benefits.

The fact that there are homeless people living under bridges, does not take away from the value that the bridge provides.

This is not the case for libraries. For the ones that do act as homeless shelters, you may as well just throw away all the books, and everything, because you aren't going to be getting much work done there.

Where I am in Canada, I haven’t found suburb libraries to be a safe haven either; you have bored, angst-ridden teens wanting to start fights there instead and there’s usually not as much security to stop them compared to an urban library.

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.

It's my actual experiences in two of the United States' largest cities. It's not like Escape From New York, but it's more than enough to make it hard to get into any kind of reading or work. Maybe you're used to it, but as someone who uses public transportation only half a dozen times a year it's off-putting in either situation.

If you're talking about one of the few US cities like New York where the vast majority of people use public transportation, then that's why it's not going to match other people's experiences where public transportation is mainly used by people who have no other option.

Sometimes, in the absence of a good solution, the best thing to do is try to keep the inadequate, incomplete solutions we have intact. That might mean tolerating some annoying behavior, voting to increase funding for local libraries (if that is an option for you), etc.

you are right libaries in chicago burbs have positive and inspiring energy while those in the city have dull 'government' energy and are filled with sadness and grief. I love going to libraries in the burbs but can't wait to GTFO out the ones in the city when I am there. I highly doubt that these libraries in the city are helping the needy in any big way( I would like to be wrong on this one).

It seems to work for everyone in my neighborhood. Homeless, wealthy, children, young and old all using the local library. They have work training programs and children’s programs.

where is this if i may ask?

Logan Square in Chicago. Chicago is known for having an excellent library system. A couple examples; all the major museums have passes at each library that can be "checked out" for free entry [1], Harold Washington Library has a Maker Lab with 3D printers, design software and laser and electronic cutters [2], there is a program called YOUmedia where some libraries have full sound editing equipment (Chance the Rapper used this to make his first mixtape) [3]. I can also get any book delivered to my local library for pickup through the CPL phone app.

[1] https://chicagoonthecheap.com/free-museum-admission-chicago-...

[2] https://www.chipublib.org/maker-lab/

[3] https://www.chipublib.org/programs-and-partnerships/youmedia...

I wonder if there are tricks to limit these. Like putting libraries on the third floor without elevators.

Welcome to the wonderful world of an ADA lawsuit in the US.

Accessibility Disability Action ?

The Americans with Disabilities Act

Americans with Disabilities Act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Ac...

welcome to the wonderful world of denying library access to the disabled, just because you hate the idea of homeless people using it

> I wonder if there are tricks to limit these.

Does having an effective social safety net count as a “trick”?

It really depends on the country, in some they are homeless shelters, in others they are amazing places to spend your time

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