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Comment by slededit | Hacker News Reader

As the song goes “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”.

The town tested out life without libraries and saw it was bad for kids. This got the votes to reopen them. I think sometimes it’s healthy to see if we “really need it”. Especially when physical books are becoming obsolete.

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I don't know about these libraries specifically but all of the libraries by where I live serve many more purposes than just a warehouse for physical books. Free internet access, community gardens, 3d printers, audio books, some even run classes for kids on various topics like personal finance and how to put together a resume.

To be totally fair, I might get upset over a "library tax" that turned out to be actually funding community gardens. Those aren't even related ideas.

I haven't used it personally but I'm pretty sure the library with the garden that's near me actually uses the garden for classes to teach children about things like how insects pollinate plants and how to grow stuff. I think it's mostly an educational tool as opposed to a way to feed the neighborhood on the tax payers' dime.

Maybe community garden is the wrong term for it. I would also be a bit unhappy if my taxes were paying for a library to feed the neighborhood. There's other/better ways for the government to give food to people from collected taxes.

Why can't the kids just hang out somewhere else?

Where? Smoking weed behind the dumpsters? Loitering in the mall? Watching someone scream at a video game on twitch.tv?

I'd much rather encourage them to spend time at a library instead. Kids love to read.

I'd like to see malls made more friendly to kids once again, yes.

http://deadmalls.com/ no further comment needed :-)

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