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Comment by throwawaylolx | Hacker News Reader

Just post the actual results: https://news.gallup.com/poll/284009/library-visits-outpaced-...

Also, the results don't show at all that "more Americans went to the library than to the movies" but rather that Americans went more to the library than to the movies (on average), which is not very surprising given that only one of them is free.

In other words, if 100 Americans went to the movies once, and 1 American went to the library 101 times, the results would still rank libraries higher than movies despite it being obviously not true that "more Americans went to the library than to the movies."

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That link still isn’t to the actual results. Here they are: https://news.gallup.com/file/poll/284015/200123LeisureActivi...

Your page points to this — good luck finding the hyperlink though!

Anyway, defined as “% of population that did the thing at least once”, movies are first, parks second, and libraries third.

Parks have seen a huge uptick in popularity. The other two dropped off (libraries dropped off more than movies).

In terms of median visits per person (probably the better measurement), almost nothing changed.

Concerts went from 1 to 2 visits, libraries went from 3 to 2. I’d guess those are explainable as statistical noise.

There's a whole class of people who practically live in libraries, which makes your example very realistic.

Last year did have some unlimited go-to-the-movies plans, though.

e.g., the neighborhood library is the (non-school) hub of my kindergartener's social life. And therefore, to some extent, mine.

It's one of the few places I know of that has plenty for young children to do, is open in all weather, is anywhere close to home, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg to get into.

I think OP was referring to homeless people, who enter libraries in order to protect themselves from cold.

I do, too; that's what motivated me to offer a reality check to try and counterbalance what a lot of people are going to (reasonably) interpret as a mean-spirited joke.

Homeless people use the library more than just a place to get warm. It's a free place to use the toilet. It's an important entry point to social services, and free internet access.

And of course, plenty of people use them as a place to read books, magazines, and newspapers.

Yes, I guess it's like that; I just noticed that when I visited United States (I'm Italian), don't know much about homelessness in United States

Italy also has libraries and homeless people, doesn't it? Are libraries free or discriminatory? Where do homeless people typically spend their time?

I don't know much about homelessness, I'm sorry. I can just say that you can't see so many homeless people as in US cities.

The US has about twice as many homeless people per capita as Italy.

Or college students? When I was in school I spent more time in the library than literally anywhere else on Earth other than my house. That's where I did the majority of my homework.

I could also imagine someone working remotely having high library utilization.

I work from the Library. About 1/2 of all people on the computer desks with own laptop are running their business from the library. Free desk open from 9.00 am to 8.00 pm Mon-Fri.

Most co-working spaces charge $20-$100 per day for a desk.

That's interesting! What about calls? You never have work calls with collegues / other people?

My local library has a "phone room" - literally the size of a phone booth. I think there are some usage limits but I've never used it so I'm not sure what they are.

My local library is wonderful. My kid has activities, learns reading, draws, etc. and it offers computer skills to those who wouldn't otherwise learn them. Very good use of local tax dollars.

Please make an active effort to support your local library and it’s funding. Consider running for a trustee or other governance position to further this endeavor.

I don't disagree. I think the title was supposed to help people who haven't been think that libraries were good to visit (which they are).

In my opinion, libraries are the single greatest tool an individual has to advance their station in life. I wish more people would take advantage of that opportunity.

> libraries are the single greatest tool an individual has to advance their station in life

Surely the internet beats libraries by a large margin on this.

You can use the Internet on a free library computer. This is great if you don’t own one and don’t have Internet access at home.

... kind of, so long as you live in a large enough area. Some folks still don't have a free, local library they can use. (Some small towns in Indiana aren't included in any library tax districts and cannot freely use the library). Some small (and larger!) towns don't have enough computers for their busy times, so you really must keep your internet time efficient to comply with the 30-minute time limit. This isn't so much an issue if you can go during off times, but not so great if you have to go after school when the library is busy or if you happen to catch them in summer hours when they close early.

I lived in such an area. The library itself was great and really did work on expanding internet access (allowing adults to use a laptop, for example) - but it was a small town with a limited budget. It simply couldn't serve the area better.

> Some small towns in Indiana aren't included in any library tax districts and cannot freely use the library

That's crazy. In California, most libraries are open to all California residents: you can join the San Francisco library even if you live in rural farm parts of California. Great for accessing ebooks.

Actually it doesn't.

For example you can read news papers without ads :-) at the Sunnyvale library, the Wall Street Journal, the NY Times, the Washington Post, Economist, Etc. And many periodicals. All without sacrificing your privacy or trying to subvert some paywall.

You can read texts on pretty much any subject that were not only written by someone who took time to write it, but were edited and often fact checked by a third party (publisher).

You can read classic stories, and new stories, in all sorts of genres.

You can socialize at the library, ours has a couple of meeting rooms you can reserve as long as you aren't trying to sell something. Some libraries have a coffee shop in them which is pretty cool.

Oh, and you can surf the web if you want but there isn't anything on the Internet that you can't get at the library and the quality of the interaction at the library is always better.

My library even offers a media streaming service that you can use to check out movies and shows to watch at home!

You can check out eBooks too. All offered with no ad-tech nonsense.

> you can read news papers without ads

Don't all those papers have ads in them?

I’m hardly a heavy/regular library user but between picking up discount passes, picking up a video now and then, donating books, using a library to work in when I’m in a city, and even doing research, I’m in a library a good dozen times a year. For most people, that actually would be frequent movie theater going by count.

ADDED: And furthermore, as other comments have observed, most of library visits are dropping in for maybe 5 minutes. If I were only to count the times I spend multiple hours in the library, it would probably be a couple times a year--and that's mostly because a few city libraries are often convenient places to hangout with free WiFi when I have some time between appointments/activities.

Not to mention picking up groceries once a week.

Not just are libraries free, but going once often begets going again i.e. if you take out a book, you have to return it.

I know there are other uses for a library, and I wonder the percentage of trips to the library to take out books vs. other reasons.

If someone had asked me about the number of times I have gone to the library, I would actually have a hard time being able to answer that well.

First of all I don’t have a great memory of specific things in my day to day life. Ask me today what I had for dinner two days ago I could venture a guess based on what I usually have for dinner, but I couldn’t give you an answer with great confidence.

Anyway, part of what makes it kind of hard to define how much I have been to the library is also because I sometimes pass through the library at the university.

And I have borrowed like one book recently, but I don’t remember if that was within the last year or not.

But actually what I was wanting to say was that, different people might count what constitutes a visit to the library differently. To me, simply passing by to drop off a book does not constitute a visit. Whereas going there to borrow a book counts. And going there to attend some sort of event counts. And going there to browse the shelves for a while counts. And going there to just sit down and work with some of my own stuff on my computer counts.

It was probably something like

Daily More than once a week More than once a month About once every two months Once a year Never

Which is a lot easier to estimate and answer for most people.

For instance my mom would probably just pick the twice a month or weekly answer even though sometimes she’s traveling and wouldn’t be there for a week.

Everything you borrow is attached to your card. Everything is self reported.

True, but not every visit is for checking out or returning material. In fact, there was a technical meetup event at my local library yesterday.

If i go its to use the internet.

Ok, we've edited the title to use that phrasing. Thanks!

We've also switched to that URL from https://lithub.com/in-2019-more-americans-went-to-the-librar....

On top of that movie theaters attendance (in number of tickets sold and also their value as far as I can remember) has been going down for several years, so there's a lot to say about the progressive decline of movie-going (in relative terms) than libraries as a whole...

Not only in America. But I have also to say that the price of a ticker for the cinema is increasing over the years. Before the Euro, a ticket would cost the equivalent of 5 Euro. After 2002, until today, the average ticket price is of 9 Euro and for some shows can also reach 17-20 (!!!), Depending if the film is 3D/IMax/displayed on a 8mm/is weekend.

The Euro is kinda irrelevant to your argument. It would have been the same in your legacy currency.

but a 300% increase in prices are really bad

I go to the library to borrow movies :-)

I suspected it would be 'frequent visitors' to the library that influenced the results.

I really, really wish attendance at the library was higher than at the theatre. But it's just not what I see happening.

Frequent visitors applies to each dataset. There are a certain % of people who go to every big movie opening. Kids are over represented in both groups. There are too many agents of change that could affect either dataset to draw a conclusion.

The bigger question is why are people not going to the movies anymore. A few years ago the numbers wouldn't be as close. There is a trend to go out to a movie less and stream more.

I don't go to the movies as often.

For me, it's a combination of alternatives for free time, higher ticket prices, and disgust at the loud-mouthed arrogance of some of the performers. I will actually not go see a movie I might have otherwise seen if the actor speaks down about others who hold opposing ideas about politics or religion.

The data linked in comments actually shows that far fewer people visited the library than the movies. So the initial title was the opposite of reality.

Libraries are not free, just subsidized. Someone pays for them, and they're not cheap. Also, they rely heavily on contributions and donations.

Just saying.

(council person)

The original poster means: given that you have paid all your taxes, etc, the marginal cost for you of going to the library and taking out a book is 0.

Of course the infrastructure costs money to maintain, and the people working there are paid.

The phrase "free at the point of service" is sometimes used to describe this

Whenever someone says X is free, they usually mean: X has already been paid for via other means (taxes) and doesn’t have a usage fee. E.g. free beer doesn’t just come out of the ground (and if it did, you would still need to spend resources on extracting it).

There were more visits to libraries than movie theaters.

Love it. Where would one be more likely to learn to understand the difference, at a library or at a movie?

Depends if you're sleeping or not

>which is not very surprising given that only one of them is free.

It mentions this in the write up.

That said, most of the people I know have been to far more movies than they've been to the library (which is exactly 0 times). I know people who have never been to the library in their adult life. The library is an underutilized resource.

How many kids with school projects do you hang out with? How many seniors without a computer do you know?

This isn't a study in how many people you know.

I know no one who goes to movies or libruaries but this study didn't capture that.

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