10/28: What is library’s role in age of iPad, Kindle?
Moderated by Tom Sabulis
Georgia’s state funding of public libraries ranks eighth in the nation. But local support lags, so systems face big budget cuts.
Gwinnett County has turned to raising private funds.
University libraries, in turn, are moving to make their research more accessible to the masses.
Both make a strong case for the continued viability of libraries in the age of Kindle and the iPad.
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26 comments Add your comment
What my daughter reads
October 28th, 2011
4:59 pm
Clarke County (Athens) is the poorest county in Georgia, but the library is always full of people and I’m not talking about the wealthy either. The “public” library a great service and one tax dollar I will never complain about. Everything is positive about people going to the library. The worst thing they can do is expand their minds. The fact that they take the time to go to the library versus hanging out is a tribute of their desire to better their mind and themselves.
SIGMONICUS
October 28th, 2011
3:48 pm
In the past two years, I’ve re-discovered the library. I stopped buying novels & utilize the library system’s very efficient book transfer system to save money. My wife was shocked that I was able to check out her book club selection for free. E-readers are OK but hard-copy books don’t run out of batteries. It’d be a shame to see the library system phase out.
Mary
October 28th, 2011
3:45 pm
In July alone (the last month I have stats handy for at the moment) the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System circulated 392,145 items and had 346,862 library visits. Just because you may not be an active library user does not mean that others in your community don’t see this as a valuable resource. I’m pretty sure these numbers speak to the fact that if libraries disappeared it would be a very big blip on a lot of peoples radars.
What my daughter reads
October 28th, 2011
3:07 pm
My 15 year old daughter reads about two books a week and still is an honor student taking honors classes at a great private school. We gave her a Kindle, but she still likes the feel of paper and books. So we have a caravan to the local library picking up and returning books. The Kindle’s advantage is that you can have many, many books in it, but it mostly sits around charging. Let’s hear it for the public libraries and the great contribution that make to help everyone without cost. I don’t know the numbers for usage in the last 10 years or so, but our main library here in Athens is always busy and crowded.
Katzkrach Phever
October 28th, 2011
2:41 pm
People who have Kindles, etc., are going to download a specific book that they decided to read. The fun of going to a library or a book store is to walk around, browse, and discover a book you never knew about and certainly wouldn’t have decided to buy on your Kindle. It’s how learning becomes fun. If all we do is buy books we know about, and program specific music we choose instead of listening to the potluck that is radio, what a boring, predictable world this is going to be.
Eric
October 28th, 2011
2:35 pm
Chiquita Bonita is right! Not everyone can afford e-books (nor do they want them!). Besides, a library is the only sane, quiet place to read or study anymore. Are we so desparate in this county to squabble over every penny that we’d gladly dismiss our libraries? I would hope not!
Eric
October 28th, 2011
2:31 pm
Peter, you are heartless! I think it’s great that the poor or unemployed can use the library for free internet access. What if you were in their situation? We need to keep the libraries just as they are for public use and to ensure democracy. If everything goes the way of technology and privatization that some are advocating, we have lost the soul of our great country!
Peter
October 28th, 2011
2:19 pm
What we need is a Tea Party revolution within local governments to make sure that tax money is no longer wasted on public libraries and their staff. In an age when so many people are suffering financially and we struggle to pay for necessities like roads, we shouldn’t be throwing money at a bygone institution.
Libraries function now, basically, as a welfare system providing internet access to ne’er-do-wells who can’t afford it at home and unnecessary jobs to staff who have nothing constructive to offer the community yet still collect a paycheck.
If libraries can find private funding, that’s fine. There may be some communities that find a good in public libraries and, if so, the local marketplace can pitch in money to pay for it. But to squeeze the money out of taxpayers for this unnecessary service is wrong. I don’t know of any neighbors or friends in Forsyth County who use the library. They could disappear without causing a blip on the radar of daily life here.
Tom
October 28th, 2011
2:02 pm
Libraries should be more aggressive soliciting private funding if they plan to continue operating in their present manner. Personally, I am disgusted when I walk into our local libraries and see the only activity being performed by the volunteers while the paid staff is reading books – and we have a very large paid staff here in Coweta. So no, with this current system I would not donate money to keep the paid staff employed while we are unable to access ebooks because their salaries have eaten away at the money that should have gone towards purchasing digital materials that could be accessed at any time and from any location.
itsme
October 28th, 2011
1:56 pm
Probably 25 years ago a local politician said that libraries were obsolete. He said everyone should just do what he did — buy books. He was as out of touch with the real world then as some folks are today. When everyone who wants one can afford to afford buy and maintain a device, plus the cost of the books… when some other entity provides the programming that libraries do, then MAYBE libraries will be obsolete. Until then, they are vital.