Posted on 04/24/2005 9:49:51 PM PDT by SmithL
Books are fine, but why do we need taxpayer-funded bookmobiles?
For that matter, why do we even need taxpayer-funded libraries?
Hasn't anybody heard of the bookstore?
I thought government was to put out fires and defend the borders. Not to give us stuff to read. I mean, thanks to the private sector, it's already everywhere you look. If I simply bought one copy of every magazine offered at the corner Mobil station — covering everything from Kawasaki motorcycles to Esquire women we love to Forbes financial advice — I'd be reading for the next year.
Yet, now the poor taxpayers in Orland Park are stuck three times over. First, they paid for an unneeded library. Then, they paid for an unneeded bookmobile. And now, they must pay the $8.5 million bill to settle the lawsuit over the 2001 bookmobile crash that left a man brain-damaged.
All this foolishness could have been avoided if government had just stayed out of the library business in the first place.
But, you might say: "We need a library system so that our neediest citizens can read as much as the well-off! Books are expensive!"
Well, it depends. If you buy hard-cover and full-price, then, yes, books can be expensive. Last Monday I bought "An Incomplete Education," the 1995 edition, by Judy Jones and William Wilson, off the shelf at the Borders bookstore in Evanston.
Later, looking at the receipt, I must admit I felt pretty stupid. List price for the book was $32.50. Adding tax, the total was $35.34. If books were always so expensive, there might be a case for keeping libraries. (Not bookmobiles.)
But, you see, there now exists Amazon.com, where you can order nearly any book you can think of for a bargain price, and in less than a minute. I kid you not. A couple of days after my purchase, I made a sample buy on Amazon to see the alternative price.
I have ordered from Amazon in the past, so they already have my billing (home) address, my work (delivery) address and my credit card number. I typed "Incomplete Education" into the search field. The book popped up as $21.45 new.
Trying to demonstrate thrift, I clicked on "used." I found a copy for $6.25. The seller labeled the condition as "very good." In other words: "crisp/clean/unmarked pages, in firm binding, with straight spine. Minor wear/scuffing to dust jacket. Minor edge wear."
This was good enough for me. I want to read the book, not mount it in a glass case.
Postage was another $3.95, for a total of $10.20. If I had proceeded, I could have had the book delivered to me at work by this coming Tuesday, for a savings from Borders of $22.30.
And you know how much time this order would have taken me? I counted the seconds: 31.
An excellent book (delivered to your desk, no less) for $10.20. Hmm. That sounds like a bargain to me. Let's do some math here. Divided by the 55,000 residents of Orland Park, the $8.5 million bookmobile settlement comes to $155 apiece. By my calculations, with that money a family of four could have bought 61 books from Amazon.
Now, instead, they have to sink it into a boondoggle.
There's another reason citizens should buy books rather than borrow them from a library. In my opinion, the only good books are those worth keeping. Then, in the future, you can return for the pleasure of rereading; or to refresh your memory about a certain quote; or to reprint a compelling passage for a column like this one.
If a book isn't worth keeping, it probably isn't worth reading in the first place.
Consider my new book. "An Incomplete Education" is just the reference for people like me who didn't pay attention in college. It's divided into 12 chapters: American Studies, Art History, Economics, Film, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Religion, Science and World History.
If you don't know something, you can just dip into the book and fake it. For instance, did you miss the movie "Citizen Kane"? Then read the synopsis here. It tells you what the fuss was back then and what the fuss is today. Now you can utter "Rosebud" with the best of them.
Another example: Suppose you get invited to a royal wedding and quickly have to learn the hierarchy of British peerage. Per my book, the mnemonic to remember is "Do men ever visit Boston?" Take the first letter of each word and you can impress for success: duke, marquis, earl, viscount and baron.
The book also gives you crucial pronunciation information. For example, despite all logic, viscount is pronounced VYE-count. I knew that one. But I didn't know this: Marquis is pronounced MAR-kwiss.
Finally, the book lists some really useful foreign phrases, such as the French "nostalgie de la boue." It means "yearning for the mud."
As the authors explain, the phrase refers to wallowing by a person you would have thought was above such a things — "particularly in a guess-who's-sleeping-with-whom context."
I don't know when, I don't know how, but someday I simply have got to work that delicious phrase into a column. And to think I never would have heard of it if not for "An Incomplete Education." If you can't afford $10.20 to buy such a valuable book, then you've got bigger problems than the price of books.
So, a memo to Orland Park: Dump the bookmobile. And maybe dump the whole library too. Let your citizens keep their tax money and buy their own books. It's the American way.
Clearly you have never been in a urban library which has been turned into an impromptu homeless shelter, not by the management, but by the ACLU.
They are obviously not using the library facilities other than the rest rooms and the heated space in winter, by they can not be kicked out. They make it impossible for taxpaying citizens to use the library.
The fact is that libraries are used by a fairly small portion of the population. They do provide a valuable service that is spread over the entire population. Perhaps placing a toll booth in front of the building would help defray the costs and lead to wiser usage. Privatization might be the key. Then only the users would pay but the bookstore really would become a competitor. But the library will soon be obsolete if Bill Gates has his wish. We will all be visiting virtual libraries where the risk of injury from the errant bookmobile will be eliminated.
The author has a point to make and doesn't really make it with any subtlety or assurance.......HOWEVER, he does make mention of an OUTSTANDING book that I would recommend to EVERYONE, "AN INCOMPLETE EDUCATION" !!!! It is one of my FAVORITE books, I know of NOTHING like it, and YES, anyone could probably get it from one of the booksellers that goes through Amazon for under $10. I bought THREE copies when I saw it remaindered at B and N.
Because nothing can replace the serendipity of browsing. Amazon is all well and good, but you have to know what you are looking for. Sometimes you don't know what you are looking for until you find it.
Library's artist should have checked out a dictionary
11 of mosaic's 175 famous names misspelled
The LA public library broke me of the liberal indoctrination in high school.
The public library is something worth saving and continuing. If it could break me out of liberalism in LA, it can help anyone. Personally, I am of the mind that high school should have at least one year that is conducted entirely in a large metropolitan library.
Kinda dumb. Why buy books you can read for free? Also kinda snobbish. Not everybody considers $10 for a used book a bargain. My main problem with my local library is getting the leftist librarian to order the books I want to read.
I read really quickly, and when I can, I usually read a minimum of a book a day. Libraries are wonderful, they allow me to read without going broke, or sitting in Barnes and Noble all day feeling guilty for reading a book that I'm not going to buy.
I buy and keep a lot of books.
But when people need to research the American Constitution or child psychology, they don't come to my house. They go to libraries where they can find the materials they need, in buildings that usually have the right weather conditions and cared for by people who know how to do that.
I think that's why we need libraries. And as for my friend who said that he couldn't afford books at some point, I, too, have been in that situation. The only people who really trusted me to get all the books I needed were librarians.
I have spent more time in a library then you have existed and I have read more books then you have seen.
When I was young the libraries were the refuge of bookworms.
Some cities may allow bums to hang out in libraries is no reason to keep people from reading books they may not want to buy.
I take it you are from the NE or Left coast.
I wonder how many poor people actually use the libraries (I'm not counting bums here)... I have a weak spot when it comes to libraries. I remember back as a kid, wandering around in libraries, never knowing what book I'd actually end up reading. It'd usually be either on astronomy or history.
Just to play Devil's Advocate here:
Internet.
Speaking of Virtual Libraries, Project Gutenburg is an excellent website hosts a ton of public domain books and documents. It is a great resource when ever you need a quick source, and because it is on the computer a quick ctrl+f will allow you to find a specific word, great for quotes you half remember :)
If anything, we should have MORE libraries, not fewer or none.
Education is what lifts people up.
There are a zillion real wasteful programs funded by the US government, the author should have gone and done some research on those, instead of making this ridiculous call to close the libraries.
I can't imagine there is another person in the US who agrees with him.
oops, forgot the URL. Its www.gutenberg.org
Agreed. I loved going to the library--especially during the summer.
"Because knowledge should be easily available and attainable if you want to have an educated society."
===
I agree completely. Next, this guy will probably propose that we should close all public schools too...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.