County Tax Hike: Build a Bonfire, Not a New Library
“But residents should not be paying a library tax to build community centers. The library district needs instead to tear down the buildings it has, and start planning to sell off the buildings, and land, and go out of business when there are no longer ink-on-paper books. A Library Science degree will shortly go the way of English and Journalism degrees, as worthless pieces of paper. Soon, the Internet—and technology in general—will do what author Ray Bradbury predicted in his novel Fahrenheit 451 about futuristic America, where all books are banned and those found are burned. We are now slowly getting rid of books without any fires.”
Isn’t that exactly why we
Isn’t that exactly why we need libraries…?
Okay….have we all finished
Okay….have we all finished laughing yet?
Sadly, a good-size portion of the population thinks the same way this grumpy man does. When we craft or PR instruments, we need to consider these guys. They’re crabby and they VOTE.
Also
They are the ones paying for the services
I love my MLS.
Librarians might have become ‘worthless’ to the average citizen, but library science degrees are very useful. Mine helped me get the job I have now (of course I had to quit public librarianship and go to corporate America). I make a living wage and could even afford to get a PhD in information science.
Of course nothing I do is related to my MLS, but who cares it got me a job at almost four times my librarian’s salary.
I did the same thing
Went corporate, and was hired specifically because of my research skills. I work in R&D and purchasing at an engineering company now, and will probably never go back to traditional librarianship. And I doubled my salary going from academic librarian to my corporate job. I use my MLS skills every day.
Filing for Unemployment
I’m heading for the unemployment office right after work.
Apparently my family is doomed
I have an MLS and my spouse has a journalism degree. (We’re both using them too.)
Sadly, libraries have become
Sadly, libraries have become community centers for children and the homeless. Librarians, ‘cashiers’ checking out or in your load of books. In fact, just today I spoke to a librarian about how to access book recommendations from experts on a few topics of interest to me. He seemed utterly nonplussed. First, to even be walking out among the shelves with a patron!! ( and w/ out a cart) and secondly, to be asked what seemed to me to be a basic library question. Gave me a few lists ( that didn’t pan out) I found a few slightly better ones myself, eventually…but in the end it didn’t much matter as the library only had one book on the master list I had assembled. I was given a flyer for a movie on my way out, but could barely hear the librarian over the throngs of rambunctious kids.
The flyer was for movie
The flyer was for movie night. But, in general it seems that ‘keepin it real’ (and hip) for the masses has eclipsed keeping the noise level down so people can actually read and focus, and keeping the quality of collections high and worthy of reading. Austin Public Library doesn’t even have a reference book comparing all the city stats for the biggest cities in America. They do have a four year old copy of the Southern states edition, but that’s it. Apparently, the rest of the state’s metro areas don’t warrant a passing thought.