Posted on 02/09/2010 8:43:08 AM PST by reaganaut1
...
One year ago, a new library designed by world-class architect William Rawn opened on Mattapan’s Blue Hill Avenue, a street rarely associated with first-class anything. [...]
But the highlight of the new library was its young adult room. [...]
In reality, some of the young people are throwing punches, hurling insults, and tossing furniture in the space that Rawn designed as an “oasis of safety.’’ It doesn’t happen often, but often enough to draw negative publicity and discourage some adults from patronizing the library. The good kids who easily outnumber the thugs know what comes next. “People will say we don’t deserve this space,’’ said 15-year old Lyne Jacques, a student at Boston Latin Academy.
Troublemakers do get banned. And Mattapan’s leaders are refusing to yield even an inch of the new 21,000 square-foot library to thugs. Last week, the reading and activity rooms adjacent to the young adult room brimmed with people ready to help. [...]
But what about support from the Boston Public Library itself? It’s common to find dozens of young people at the library in the late afternoon. Yet there is only one teen librarian to serve the branch, and he is tied up much of the time monitoring the time limits on the 12 in-demand computers. [...]
Not a single teen at the Mattapan library so much as touched a book on the shelves during a recent hour-long visit. Granted it’s the digital age, and several kids were using the computers constructively for homework projects. But there is still something off here: a city builds a $16 million library, designs it in such a brilliant way that kids come streaming through the door, yet can’t staff it adequately to introduce the young people to the full range of library materials.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
I'll avoid expressing some non-PC comments about the people of Mattapan.
Putting a hack on a government salary will make the teens be interested, ubetcha.
(I know that not all library employees are hacks but it’s a Glob article).
Lesson #1) In an age before Income Tax, rich people engaged in great works of philantrophy which greatly improved the lives of the poor.
Lesson #2) Government handouts from FDR and LBJ killed most of the incentive for poor people to improve their lives.
Tear down the government. It's killing us.
Nice post!
You nailed it.
I lived in Delaware for a while. The Du Pont family were very very generous. The built schools, hospitals, roads, set land aside for beautiful parks, supported the arts, and created museums.
My local small-town library just won some award for digital availability, but half the books are gone since the remodel a few years ago. They must be SOMEWHERE, because they can be requested, but the ugly old functional shelves which held a gazillion seductive and unknown treasures have been replaced by beautiful half-high curved walnut racks holding the latest Nora Roberts. Face out.
I rarely go into the book section myself - there’s nothing to browse any more. I just pick up my requests at the desk. It makes me sad sometimes, I used to love the library. I still love not having to buy every book I read, of course.
Privatize all libraries
You can lead a horse to water....
But with places like Half-Price Books, you can get books real cheap.
I’m still able to find books just by browsing the shelves, both in my little county branch and the two Mecklenburg branches I visit. I even take random books out in the “young adult” section sometimes. Maybe the main, downtown branches have been “updated” to serve the non-reading public, while they haven’t gotten around to it out in the ‘burbs.
I can’t imagine what it would be like having children/teens who didn’t read. Anoreth has so many books in her locker on the cutter that she was having to rent space from other seamen to store her boots! I told her to resell some of the books for cash ;-). She can’t use the library, since she never knows when or for how long she’ll be at sea.
I don't know how anybody's ever going to find Elswyth Thane's Williamsburg novels again - I noticed them once on a walkthrough, with their 30's-style covers, and thought they must be pretty good for the library to have kept them so long. They were, and I tracked down a set of my own eventually, but no one will ever see those covers on a walkthrough again, and wonder what's inside. And they're whining for more money so they can have even more computers. Feh. No.
Those are new books, mostly not worth storing. Most of the books I own are out-of-print. You've got to be a damn good current writer to get shelf space in MY house.
Oh no, you can find a bunch of old out-of-print books there. I go just to look at the old vinyl records they sell there.
Heh, Meck. County has some of those; looks like they’re at Main, so I wouldn’t pick one up at my branch.
Yeah, I see what you say. I rarely go myself, but it’s fun to go through the bookshelves and be able to find whatever book you want without having to go through the catalogue.
I’m just thankful I was born just before all the digitisation, I was trained under the old system.
This being Virginia, each branch I visited had some of the set. Probably Main had them all. That was before the days of online requests, so I went on a mission and drove around to collect them. I guess I could have filled out written forms and waited, but that would have meant delayed gratification.
Rats. I just checked and my state isn’t on their list.
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