More on Public Libraries

Libraries, supposedly the home for knowledge. But wait. Who selects what goes into this library? The Librarian. And thus what we get is a filter as strong as any we see in Facebook or Google. But in the case of public libraries they are the local librarian, in New Jersey a person we are taxed to support every year as part of our property taxes. Is there any contact with them? No! They quite frankly do whatever they want.

Information access has changed dramatically in the past thirty years. In my opinion, libraries are defunct. Information, old and new is available on line. Not in a library. My own personal library is just over 10,000 books, I try to keep it at or below that number.

Now the NY Review of Books has a piece praising Libraries. They note:

The public loves the public library. ...a Pew Research Center study from 2016 that showed that more than 90 percent of Americans consider the library “very” or “somewhat” important to their community. Pew researchers also found that about half of all Americans sixteen and older had used the library in the past year. Even so, libraries are often convenient targets for budget cuts. After the financial crisis, in the years 2008–2013, for example, New York City eliminated $68 million from the operating budget of the New York Public Library, which resulted in a dramatic drop in staff hours and in its acquisition budget. (A fair amount of Ex Libris is given over to poignant behind-the-scenes discussions about budgets.) But it wasn’t just the New York Public Library that was suffering. A study by the American Library Association around the same time found that twenty-one states reported cuts in library funding.

I really do not know what the basis for this is. My personal experience with Pew is that they are in my opinion highly biased. But that is my opinion based upon my experience. They continue:

In 2008 the private-equity billionaire .... donated $100 million to the cash-strapped NYPL. The library’s flagship Beaux-Arts building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, which opened in 1911 and took sixteen years to complete at a cost of $9 million (plus $20 million for the land on which it sits), now bears his name. One hundred million dollars is a lot of money, but it pales in comparison to the philanthropy of Andrew Carnegie, the patron saint of libraries (and rabid industrialist), whose $55 million largesse—the equivalent of $1.6 billion today—funded 2,509 libraries worldwide, 1,679 of them public libraries in the United States, between 1886 and 1919. Sixty-seven of them were in New York City, sixteen of which are still in use.

 Now the unmentioned donor now has his name on my Alma Mater, so my donations go elsewhere, but alas, I have never been to the 42nd Street Library. I have no need to. There is this thing called the Internet, eighteen books and still going strong! I remember my first book, Xerox copies of documents and working in un-air conditioned desks at MIT, the sweat pouring down my arm marking the writing on lined yellow pads. Now, I can sit with multiple screens access indexed files and write and rewrite as necessary. I have been to our town Library once, the have nothing of interest. It is a social gather hole, that is all.

So are Libraries useful? Good question. Perhaps it should be asked.

A Critique of Public Libraries

In a recent article in the New York Review of Books the author notes:

Years ago, I lived in a remote mountain town that had never had a public library. The town was one of the largest in New York State by area but small in population, with a couple thousand residents spread out over about two hundred square miles. By the time my husband and I moved there, the town had lost most of its economic base—in the nineteenth century it had supported a number of tanneries and mills—and our neighbors were mainly employed seasonally, if at all. When the regional library system’s bookmobile was taken out of service, the town had no easy access to books. The town board proposed a small tax increase to fund a library, something on the order of ten dollars per household. It was soundly defeated. The dominant sentiments seemed to be “leave well enough alone” and “who needs books?” Then there was the man who declared that “libraries are communist.”

 In contrast, I grew up in New York City where there were a lot of libraries and generally filled with useless stacks of books selected by librarians who seemed to think less of the taxpayers and more of their own view of the world. Try and get a math book, a science book, and the list goes on. If one likes fiction then you were happy.

Also, yes be quiet, at best you got the book for two weeks. You could not teach yourself calculus in two weeks, no less learn Russian.

The haven was the used book stores. Once you found a good one then for a dollar or so you could own a book. It was yours, it did not have to go back, you could read it at your own pace, mark it up, digest its contents. The hell with novels, you had something that you could build on in the real world. You could learn chemistry, learn how to design a bridge, and learn about those fellows Watson and Crick.

Why are used book stores great? Simple, for two reasons. First at some time a real person paid real money to buy a book that they thought was worthwhile.  Second, a bookseller then paid real money for a book that they thought was worthwhile. The first purchase was a real customer, and the second a real market maker. None were librarians, all had some economic calculus afoot. Librarians on the other hand often have some socio-political set of reasons and they want to spread then to their captive audience.

You could not have access to the best scientific journals in libraries but you could get a subscription to Scientific American, in the days when it had some worthwhile content, not like today, where it is filled with junk.

You also started what would become a library. Then if you went to Barnes and Nobel to their section on Dover books, for about $1.50 you could get paperback copies of great books, pushing the edge of the envelope.

Thus why go to any library when the real stuff was outside. Today in New Jersey the Libraries are guaranteed substantial funds from the Real Estate taxes. But try and get anything useful from them. At best they are a Starbucks without coffee and food.

Is there a place for Public Libraries today? As a taxpayer subsidized social club perhaps, if that is what one seeks. But as a source of information, hardly.

Stay with the used books stores and that new thing called the "Internet" I think.

Local Libraries: Are they worth it?

Local Libraries, may be on their way to extinction. Take a ride on the subway in New York. You used to see books and newspapers. Now you see smart phones. Not a single newspaper, ever. It makes it cleaner but what are they "reading"? Then what of the libraries. I have not been in one for over 45 years! Yes I have written 17 books and a few hundred papers, and hundreds of reports etc. But I get all I need on line, and not through Google. But why then libraries.

From the NY Times[1] we are "told", as they are all too often wont to do:

For children and teenagers, libraries help instill an ethic of responsibility, to themselves and to their neighbors, by teaching them what it means to borrow and take care of something public, and to return it so others can have it too. For new parents, grandparents and caretakers who feel overwhelmed when watching an infant or a toddler by themselves, libraries are a godsend. In many neighborhoods, particularly those where young people aren’t hyper-scheduled in formal after-school programs, libraries are highly popular among adolescents and teenagers who want to spend time with other people their age. One reason is that they’re open, accessible and free. Another is that the library staff members welcome them; in many branches, they even assign areas for teenagers to be with one another…The openness and diversity that flourish in neighborhood libraries were once a hallmark of urban culture. But that has changed. Though American cities are growing more ethnically, racially and culturally diverse, they too often remain divided and unequal, with some neighborhoods cutting themselves off from difference — sometimes intentionally, sometimes just by dint of rising costs — particularly when it comes to race and social class.

Well I wonder what the "ethic of responsibility" is? A "fine" for a late book, a place for teenagers to "hang out". I really wonder what world the writer is in. Libraries were in my day controlled locations, silence, and oversight. Also they are filled with materials that the librarians like. Also, and this is critical, a 10 day borrowing period just does not work for trying to learn calculus. It may works for some trashy novel, but not for The Brothers Karamazov. Also libraries are not often in the best of locations.

What is or shall we say was the role of a library. It was at least as far as I recall a depository of knowledge to be shared by a community. A library at a University, a school, even a corporation. It was not a social meeting ground. A community center serves that function. But libraries have become whatever we want them to be since they have funding independent of function. I will demonstrate that below.

Now as to funding, in New Jersey there is a massive tax imposed based on real estate values. Live in a rich town and get a well-funded library. However rich towns do not really need libraries. Poorer towns may have no interest.

From NJSpotlight[2]:

How are public libraries funded? Because they are public entities, libraries receive money from the state and must adhere to certain standards, like size and number of books, and are required to have an annual audit to ensure they are complying with state regulations. Almost all public libraries are funded according to equalized valuation of all property in the towns they serve, not just residential properties. New Jersey law sets the minimum funding limit for municipal libraries at what they call “1/3 mill.” This works out to $0.33 on each $1,000 of equalized value of the property, but currently more than half the libraries in the state are funded above this amount, according to the NJLA. For county libraries, that minimum is set at 1/15 mill (about $6.66 per $100,000) on the "apportionment valuation.” The NJLA reports that all county libraries are funded above this amount.

Note the last statement. Those rich towns really get well funded libraries. But who uses them?

From the State Law[3]:

Implementing the Municipal Library Tax Levy Law (Revised) P.L. 2011, c. 38 (S‐2068) This Local Finance Notice supersedes and replaces the guidance contained in Notice 2011‐13, which is repealed. This Notice provides an improved process that is consistent with other financial transactions related to the fiscal relationship of municipalities and public libraries covered under P.L. 2011, c. 38 (S‐2068), enacted and taking effect on March 21, 2011. The law provides a dedicated line item on property tax bill to fund municipal free and joint free public libraries. It does not result in any increased taxes, but changes the way the minimum library appropriation is displayed to the public. The implementation procedure maintains budgeting the minimum 1/3 mill of equalized value in a budget appropriation, but deducts that amount from the tax levy in the calculation of the Amount to Be Raised by taxes for Support of the Municipal Budget. This reduces the municipal tax levy and rate, creates a new line item and tax rate on the tax bill for municipal library purposes, maintains a neutral cap levy, and maintains the library appropriation as part of the municipal budget to facilitate library related transactions.

Thus take a town with 5,000 homes valued at $500,000 per home. Assume 10,000 residents. Then the Real Estate is $2.5 billion and at a rate of 0.33 mil, that is $8.25 million for the library per year. Or $850 per resident! Imagine how many books you could buy on ABE for example! That is mandated every year! Imagine a really rich town, say with $2 million homes and this $2500 per year per person to the library!

Perhaps it really is time to re-look at libraries. With real data, not politically correct wording. If one recalls Eco's The Name of the Rose, there a library was a cloistered and secure collection of allowed and forbidden texts. I can never recall a library as a social meeting ground, devoid perhaps of any books. But alas in today's world, who needs books? They may be dangerous. After all one's smart phone contains all one needs, really. 

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/opinion/sunday/civil-society-library.html

[2] http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/16/09/26/explainer-how-nj-s-public-libraries-are-faring-in-the-information-age/

[3] Web: www.nj.gov/dca/lgs LFN 2011-14, March 25, 2011

Libraries and the Source of Knowledge

There still seems to be a lingering group who think the “Library” is still the old brick and mortar facility, controlled by a group of stodgy old lady librarians, and who keep tabs on all the “books” in “their” collection. The NY Times notes today[1]:

But today, the principal danger facing libraries comes not from threats like these but from ill-considered changes that may cause libraries to lose their defining triple role: as preservers of the memory of our society, as providers of the accounts of our experience and the tools to navigate them — and as symbols of our identity. Since the time of Alexandria, libraries have held a symbolic function. For the Ptolemaic kings, the library was an emblem of their power; eventually it became the encompassing symbol of an entire society, a numinous place where readers could learn the art of attention which, Hannah Arendt argued, is a definition of culture. But since the mid-20th century, libraries no longer seem to carry this symbolic meaning and, as mere storage rooms of a technology deemed defunct, are not considered worthy of proper preservation and funding.

With all due respect one should note that Libraries have managed to get an ever increasing piece of our tax dollars through mandated funding and no accountability. Take New Jersey as an example. The Stata mandates a percent of the gross Real Estate taxes go immediately to the Library. They state[2]:

The minimum funding statute for joint and municipal libraries (N.J.S.A. 40:54-8) sets the minimum funding rate at 33 cents on each $1,000 of equalized value of all assessable property in the town. This minimum funding amount is the total of what your local municipality must, at minimum, allocate in its budget, according to the law.

Thus consider a simple example:

Assume the home is assessed for $900,000. In our town that is the average assessment, they are done at market level.

Now for each such home the $0.33X900 or $300 of their property tax goes to the Library.

Now assume there are 5,000 HH in the town then the total to the Library is $1.5M. That is just the mandated “contribution”. Now add businesses etc and we get a hefty amount mandated and growing every year! This is for a library of some half dozen people loaded with old novels that are generally un-read.

The “Library” today is on the Internet, it is accessing primary sources, original documents, books themselves. It is “free” and knowledge is shared. Knowledge is consumed. One can tell a book has been “consumed” by it appearance. It looks devoured. Libraries do not have such books; one would be fined for such behavior.

The old brick and mortar library is an archaic establishment of the past. Free WiFi? You can get that anywhere; try the train station or any coffee shop. Need information on CRISPRs, try Google and definitely not some stodgy old librarian.

So what purposes do these old buggy whip Libraries serve? Meeting rooms, hang outs? It is not at all clear. I have been in our town for over 35 years and have never taken a book from the library. I use Amazon, ABE Books, or the used book shop in town! And yes, I use the Internet! Frankly the last place I would ever go would be the Library….It is Government controlled information….and they get paid by our taxes with no oversight.

Thus perhaps the writer from the Times should reconsider the facts of the 21^st Century. As Alexandria was burned down by the advancing hordes from the sands of Arabia perhaps we should exult that it will be much more difficult for the hordes to burn down the Internet.

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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/24/opinion/reinventing-the-library.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region

 

[2] From the NJ Library Association on FAQ for the Municipal Library Tax Levy Law (P.L. 2011, c. 38) See http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2010/Bills/PL11/38_.HTM and also the http://njla.org/content/pl-2011-c38-s2068a2679a3240