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.
My child is in public school - but I would say get rid of the public schools before the public library.
What is wrong with this guy???????
My son used to stay home and read. The school used to ask about the missed days, but since he was in a gifted and talented program and was getting As and acing the city-wide exams, they couldn't say it was negatively affecting his schoolwork! I just let him read.
It was like a haven.....:)
Agreed. I don't think we should have tax-funded libraries. BTW, some here are claiming that education is a public good. Not true.
http://www.gutenberg.org/
Thanks! I bookmarked it.
My daughter would check out 20 books at a time if she were allowed...........it's beeen 3 weeks since we were to the library and she has been whining about it - she's 6.
I check out cook books - if I like them I go to Atlantic Books and buy them for about 30% of the publisher's price.
Our eyesight may take a hit.
What an ugly waste of space and money.
This city has no class.
When I was a kid from 10 until 18, during the summer I would bike to the library at least twice a book. I always would check out science books, science magazines, classic novels, music, movies, geography books, and the fiction books that were popular at the time. No way I could have afforded to buy all that stuff. And no way, would I have gotten a killer SAT verbal score or so interested in science if I didnt spend all my days reading. The library was right next to a gas station to buy candy from, the piano teachers house, and sports practices. A local library is also where I found Dinesh D'Souza's book on colleges :).
And I too was sad when they had to close or had shorter hours on a day.
This is my first post. I've been lurking since memogate. Hi everyone!
Several reasons:
1. Libraries are a convenient place for the homeless to bathe and access pornography while they ogle the children,
2. Libraries provide jobs for connected government parasites,
3. Okay, I guess there's only two reasons.
Find the complete works of E.E. "Doc" Smith and Robert Heinlein online for free. Or for pay as online viewing.
You won't find them.
Welcome to Free Republic.
Someday soon, we may see the total digitization and on-line availability of most important works, which may well protect them for the future, every read "Fahrenheit 451"? No, not Michael Moore, but Ray Bradbury.
I've still not made my mind up on this issue.
Welcome to Free Repubic.
My brother and I were so foolish as to complain about our
allowance. My parents stopped giving us one, but we still
had the same chores... aahhhhhhh what a lesson that was.
Anyway we never had any money (which served us right)
So we went to the library. Maybe that was a part of my
parents master plan.....LOL!!!
You won't find them."
On the same token, look for a publication of the likes of FreeRepublic in a library.
The answer to both in complete form is:
You won't them them. Yet
That is exactly the condition of the public library in downtown San Diego. Full of smelly bums. The internet access terminals are populated with perverts browsing porn. Anything I needed from that facility was ordered from the branch library in Mira Mesa.
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