California Cuts All State Funding for Libraries
libraryjournal.com
libraryjournal.com
...this would be slightly more interesting if it wasn't only a 3% cut to the funding of Californian libraries.
(Well, according to my back of the envelope calculation. The linked article claims the entire $30m of state funding has been cut. As of 2007, Californian libraries were apparently getting total funding (federal, state and local) of $26.47 per person. The population of California is 37m in 2009, which implies that California has total library spending of around $920m/year. And $30m is only 3% of $920m. To crosscheck, I found a report from 2000 that estimates total US library spending at $12b/year, and since California has around 12% of the total US population, that would imply around a $1.5b/year in spending. I assume spending has gone up quite a bit since then, so $920m/year certainly doesn't seem too high. I'd welcome better numbers if anyone can find them!)
Again, I don't support these cuts. But the article lacks context, and what context I can find from a few minutes of searching makes this seem very underwhelming.
(Related: back in around 2003 some people loved to talk about how Bush had increased federal education spending by 70% in his first three years. Quite true, but quite misleading if you didn't know that it was being increased from a base of effectively nil, since the federal government isn't responsible for education. Context matters!)
The publication is called "Library Journal". It's not intended for the general public, it's intended for librarians and others concerned with the operation of libraries. That audience will have no trouble understanding the article.
But I doubt one person in 100 who saw it on Hacker News had that context. And in particular, I suspect the people commenting on the article in apocalyptic terms do not have that context. But it was a perfectly fine article. :)
If he cut state funding to zero, he cut state funding to zero. If some municipalities can still afford to run libraries on their own dime, that doesn't really change the fact. Especially considering that federal grants have dried up and municipal budgets have tightened over the last 10 years.
In other news... it was recently revealed that parking lot attendants at the Dept Of Water earn $74,000 per year. LA city has a $1M yacht (they kept hidden). They used $500K in obama 'stimulus money' to install new engines.
Starve the beast. No more money. Wake-up voters - dont be fooled.
CA tax is highly variable year to year -- 10.3% on capital gains (and other income) of rich people, largely happens based on business cycle factors. Same with corporate tax.
Also the old anarchist saw:
"Libraries will get you through times of no money better
than money will get you through times of no libraries"It's probably inspired by this earlier quote from Gilbert Shelton's wonderful "The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers" comix:
"Dope will get you through times of no money
better than money will get you through times
of no dope."I'm curious about anarchist thought on libraries, mind telling me more?
Jerry Brown wants to raise taxes (yet again). But the public at large is tired of waste, and refuses to go along.
So the Governor proposes cuts to those things that cause maximum pain to the public: state parks, libraries, etc. A fairer approach would, say, cut funding across the board. A $30M budget item in a $100Billion budget works out to, 0.03% ? If he did that, no one would notice and no one would yelp in pain. So, to drive the point home and make the public notice, you go for the public's soft spots.
The first thing Jerry Brown did when he took office was to sign contracts with the powerful unions in the state. Once they were happy, he turned around and started crying about the budget. Since their contracts are signed now, they can't be subject to these budget cuts; base secured!
More on California's budget woes:
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/11/michael-...
You're bringing me back here. I was a selectman once in a small town in massachusetts, we had budget problems, put the option to a town in a vote: raise taxes or we lay off teachers.
Know what we got from the taxpayers? "How DARE you threaten to lay off teachers unless we let you raise taxes".
It's as if there's some giant line-item labeled WASTE somewhere, and Brown is stubbornly refusing to cut it and insisting on cutting useful things instead, in order to fulfill his liberal dream of taxing people.
I'll admit that I don't know the ins and the outs of the california budget. But I'd imagine he's cutting everything except for the things he's legally not allowed to cut, and attempting to save "must-haves" like emergency response at the expense of luxuries like parks and libraries.
There's a reason why a study showed that given a choice between Harvard and the California Prison Guards' academy, you are better off if you pick becoming a prison guard!
What would a free-market public library look like? And I'm not thinking McDonald's capitalism here, I'm thinking more like Google capitalism. What would the Gmail of public libraries be like?
The way I see it public libraries offer three things: physical books, physical locations, curators of content. So how could this be done in a different, startup-y way?
Physical books: maybe something involving print-on-demand technologies?
Physical locations: maybe something that piggybacks on existing physical locations?
Curators of content: I dunno, crowdsourced mobile/local/social librarians?
I am only half-kidding with this comment...
In India, it's a physical library just like the ones in the US.
You sign up as a member and pay a deposit. You also pay a per-book reading fee, as well as late fees if you don't bring the book back. If you fail to return the book you lose your deposit.
Sure, public libraries are obviously not zero-cost, just as someone (most likely people who buy ads) pays for Gmail at some point, but they both feel that way.
It's a little out of date, but here's an article about such libraries:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/business/yourmoney/11libra...
The most important resource any country has is intelligent people. Cutting library funding is cutting general education for the masses. It is actively dumbing down populous.
I've always loved libraries, but our local branch functions more as an internet cafe than a library.
>The most important resource any country has is intelligent people.
When I was younger my local library was a gathering place for students, and scholars (the intelligent people you mentioned). However, the last time I went, it was primarily full of people who couldn't afford internet access surfing Facebook.
It's going to be a major problem for some libraries, especially in poorer and/or more rural areas, but it's not a total state-wide catastrophe.
Edit: By the way, for more context, the library in my relatively wealthy city (Santa Clara) of 120,000 people, had a budget last year of $6,847,849. That's for one main library location and one small branch.
It's the new reality facing California libraries. Either that, or just close down. Seeing how county and city governments in California are more concerned with telling porn studios how to conduct their business, the libraries are gonna run out of money very quickly.
Many US libraries have audio (CDs, cassetes). Most of them are just as senseless.
I once checked out le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. It was something of an action novel, and it was entertaining. Was that one OK?
Given that the private sector does seem fully capable of providing libraries to those who want them, why do we subsidize them?
The question is rarely as simple as "could the private sector do it?"
Healthcare provision is rivalrous and excludible, ask any poor American, doesn't mean it shouldn't be universally provided by the government.
Education is rivalrous and excludible, look at private schools - doesn't mean it's wrong for there to be state schools and laws making children attend them.
The only thing that matters is whether the public benefit outweighs the burden on taxpayers.
(I'd be fine with no government funding for libraries in general; it seems like something which should be privately or charity funded to keep them safe from censorship and political control.)
You're being facetious, but this is precisely the question libraries have always faced, through thin times and fat, regardless of the social and political winds. They have only so much shelf space and face the simple fact nobody will come to a location that doesn't offer them anything they want.
There's a very old political debate at bottom: Should a government institution give the taxpayers what they want, or should it focus more on giving them what the better-educated types decide they need? Go the first way and you're competing with Wal-Mart and Barnes & Noble; go the second and you have a wonderful temple to Sanctioned Knowledge that, to a first approximation, nobody really cares about.
So, yes, what are 'sensible' holdings? Do you have any answers?
My hackles rise whenever I hear someone tell me what's worthwhile and what's not. But I do recognize practical necessity. I don't believe there's anything magical about the book/text format over electronic/other formats, other than "that's how it's been" up until recently.
I would be pleased to see "Fart Proudly" in any library's holdings, regardless of format.
Don't forget that libraries host community events, children's books, story time, literacy programs, and give poor people access to computers, printers, and the internet.
They rent out conference rooms and have a large auditorium with a theater-sized movie screen. The last time I was there they were showing Kung-Fu Panda which attracted a decent crowd. It's one library that has changed with the times.
A lot of kids (and adults) get a great deal out of their local library. I still vividly remember the very first book that I picked up by chance while browsing the Sci-Fi section and couldn't put down until I fell asleep with it in my hands at 5am.
>A lot of kids
Yes, I was one of those kids, but most of the kids I went to school with weren't readers and never went to the library for fun.
In a densely populated area if 1% of kids regularly vist the library, it will be packed. Still--most kids don't.
I also wasn't implying that libraries are without merit. The OP implied that the internet wasn't beneficial as an educational tool because most kids don't take advantage of it's potential. I merely pointed out that the same was true for libraries.
Anyway, wikipedia relies on sourced research, which requires people that know how to do research. And this was taught...at the library (You'll have a hard time finding Basic Research Methods 101 in any university catalog).
When someone says that wikipedia can replace libraries I immediately want to shake somebody violently. Please understand that wikipedia isn't a primary source. Jimmy never intended it to replace them. They'll give you a topical understanding and a list of ISBN numbers at the bottom of the page. Now you can go to the library and using your freshly acquired ISBN numbers check out the books you actually need.
Right now I'm reading a book by Bain about the transcontinental railroads that I picked up at my local library (after reserving it online, picking it up at the front counter without even having to look for it, and walking out the door in <60 seconds using the automated checkout machine) and a book on startups I got off of Amazon.
I've read the wikipedia entry on the transcontinental railroad, it's good. But it's not as detailed as book. And there are about 50,000 blog posts on startups, but none are as detailed as the book I'm reading.
Wikipedia and blog posts are all shallow overviews of the subject. If you want nuance, if you want depth, then you need a book. And the internet doesn't even come close.
Add to that interlibrary loan, and you have a wealth of information available.
For example, libraries provide services like access to computers and the Internet, for modern kids and adults without access to the Internet.
Many libraries also now provide ebooks available for the Kindle and Nook devices.
And then there's the fact that they're merely an indoor public space, usually with rooms freely or nominally available for the public to simply meet and share ideas.