I see a lot of people bemoaning the loss of a public service, but honestly I'm not sure the public library is an important service. At one time, yes, it represented access to knowledge for everyone. For everyone talking about how important this is, I'm curious how many have visited a library in the last 5 years to actually get a book.

Today, it could probably disappear and no one would miss it. There's a reason these places operate on a shoestring budget and haven't bothered to update software security. The services we value, we pay for or vote for. If there was a proposition to close libraries in favor of some other minor benefit (e.g. one extra field trip for every school child per year), it would probably lose badly.

Probably most of the relevant functions of a library can be accomplished by other more efficient means. Student loan forgiveness (librarians), homeless shelters with computers, and free daycare for kids. That's basically what people use it for now, and all can be better done if we just admit what its for and do that instead.

NGL it is crazy to me to declare no one needs a library when a new hardcover book is at least $30. I would be out hundreds of dollars, probably over a thousand a year, if I had to buy new every time I wanted to read some book I heard of and maybe didn't even enjoy (the guilt-free "read 20% decide its not for me" is amazing).

> Probably most of the relevant functions of a library can be accomplished by other more efficient means.

Two points:

Many of those relevant functions were picked up by libraries over the years due to the lack of, or cutbacks to, other government services.

Some people prefer, or can only use, services offered through libraries because they offer them with few, or no, questions asked. That is rarely the case with dedicated services, where funding often has more conditions tied to it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

Personally, I believe these are important for a functional society more generally.

Just my two cents, I get books from the library all the time.

Always shocking how willing some Americans are to tear down services that a large portion of the world would envy. Particularly when they can't even be bothered to look up what the service provides to the community.

I live a few blocks from a library and work there, borrow movies on dvd and books all the time. I see my neighbors there more often than by the house

> For everyone talking about how important this is, I'm curious how many have visited a library in the last 5 years to actually get a book.

At least every other week if not more often. I also use the library digital services a good bit. There's always lots of people at the libraries I go to browsing books, I imagine they're also checking them out.

> it could probably disappear and no one would miss it.

The libraries I go to have so many people using their various services constantly. People studying and reading. Kids playing, exploring and reading. 3D printers buzzing. Classes and events being hosted.

> one extra field trip for every school child per year

You're going to replace something lots of people use across all age ranges constantly with a single day event for only children once a year? Sounds like a terrible loss IMO.

I agree a library is way more than just a place to get books today. They do offer a lot of community center features, and I think modern library designs should cater to that need as well. But they're not homeless shelters, they're not daycares. They still have their own specific use, a general place of learning and knowledge for all people. A place for all the community to come together, not just little kids or just the homeless. It's just the way we go about sharing that has evolved a bit over time compared to the stodgy old libraries of the past.

You're getting downvoted to hell for this, I assume the excuse people are giving themselves to do this is that it is mostly irrelevant to the story - but the story is an irrelevant story. The only things interesting about it are incidental.

And your thought was my first thought. It's as if the soup kitchens were shut down because somebody had stolen all of the prayer beads, meaning that none of the homeless could pray before they ate.

Libraries have now simply become official copyright access points. I lived in libraries my entire childhood. I remember in my teens being both depressed and excited that my local library was going to close down for six months to be gutted and remodeled. I was soon the one that was gutted when I found out that after the remodel, the library would have a 20% smaller capacity for books. I had to conclude that the remodel was mostly so it would look better in photographs, people would get kickbacks, and people would get resume-padding.

Libraries have been retconned into necessary public spaces but in that case, the books are just an excuse. Get rid of the excuse and consciously create necessary public spaces. I've literally heard their existence justified by the fact that homeless people clog them up and sleep in them, which has been one of the major reasons for declines in library use imo. Just take care of homeless people.

I'd even rank access to a librarian, especially a research librarian, as of higher value than a building full of books. AI has forced us to take a different approach to intellectual property, whether we're going to consciously do that in the public interest and design systems that will protect the positives that we attribute to copyright, or whether we're going to do that through inaction by allowing the wealthiest people in the world to rent human knowledge back to us without having paid a dime for it.

I'd prefer that we govern, but if we're going to go the passive route of insisting that nothing a rich man does is a crime, we can continue to settle it through piracy. Either way, libraries are cooked.