Why have libraries when books on sale are cheap, accessible?

The Star - South Chicago ^ | April 24, 2005 | Michael J. Bowers

[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.

[billybudd]

Ok, you use public libraries. I don't. Why should I be forced to pay for your service? If you need books, go buy them, as you do for every other service. I think people support public libraries for mostly nostalgic emotional reasons. Here's some reasons I think public libraries are bad:

1. Government employees make the selection. That new book about how public libaries are bad will not make it to a bookshelf near you.
2. The selection is usually bad and outdated. This is necessarily so, since having thousands of public libraries is incredibly redundant (and expensive). Amazon wins hands down.
3. Librarians are the meanest people on earth. I'm not exagerrating.

BTW, the author's arguments are dumb. The library van that crashed could have easily been a new police van. So now, we don't need a police force? Also, the decision to buy the van was not made with foreknowledge of its crashing, so the economic calculation is not what the author describes (each family could buy 60 books).

[13foxtrot]

Coincidentally, I walked into the new Seattle Main library for the first time just the other day. What an ugly waste of space and money. This city has no class.

I agree with you regarding the Seattle Main branch. It was a ridiculous waste of money. It makes no sense to spend so much money on a downtown branch - the neighborbood branches are the ones that are used.

We use the King County system and just order everything online to be delivered to our neighborhood branch.

[international american]

Then beat the shit out of the homeless, and take back your library.

[spinestein]

[On the orders of Omar, Caliph of Baghdad, the entire collection of books (except for the works of Aristotle) stored at the Library of Alexandria were removed and used as fuel to heat water for the city's public baths."]


This account is probably incorrect as it is more likely that the library was destroyed several hundred years earlier.

http://www.bede.org.uk/library.htm

[Spktyr]

Agreed - whether reeking bums are allowed into your library or not is a matter of the management of the library. Most good libraries have a policy to deal with that.

[international american]

The guy is a libertarian idiot. Get rid of the public schools first is right!! Shhesh....lets get rid of a civilized, literate society too, we can buy civility on Amazon.

[CalRepublican]

Somebody asked about private libraries. Well, Borders and Barnes and Noble are better than any library. No, you can't check books out, that's true. But:

They have better hours.

You can browse there.

You can take a book off the shelf, plop down into a comfy chair and read it and no one says anything to you.

Parents play and read to their kids in play areas.

There's a Barnes and Noble across the street from me. I read books there all the time. The people that run the place know me. I've bought books there and I've read books there cover to cover and without buying them.

I've seen people do research papers there using books they aren't buying.

I don't know about the politics of the people who run the places, but Borders and Barnes and Noble probably are two of the best run businesses you'll find from a customer-service standpoint.

In most big cities where big bookstores like this are prevalent, you really only need one central library. If there's a college or university in town, you can usually get a pass to use that library if you have research to do.

And, owns too small to support a Borders or Barnes and Noble are also usually to small to support a library worth a darn.

The tax dollars would usually be spent in a better way.

[spinestein]

[the major priceless works of antiquity were destroyed by *Christians*, not Muslims. What Omar destroyed was a sad mouldering remnant of what once was. Islamic Jihad is evil, but Christians were responsible for the major destruction of the library.]

Probably neither Christians nor Muslims burned down the Alexandrian Library. Julius Ceaser seems to be the most likely candidate.

http://www.bede.org.uk/library.htm

[CalRepublican]

In Austin, and I think Dallas too, there are Half-Priced Book Stores all over the place. Probably what I miss most about Texas.

You can pick up East of Eden for 25 cents (half off a 70's edition where it originally cost 50 cents) read it and sell it back to them.

[Spktyr]

http://www.mediahistory.umn.edu/indextext/Alexandria.html

Caesar did do major damage, but by 391, the Library was larger than it was before Caesar accidentally damaged it, and 95% of the lost works had been replaced or supplemented.

After 391, the Library was all but unusable, and what Omar destroyed was mouldering unreadable scrolls, for the most part.

[MacDorcha]

As I recall, several thousand people who were in the WTC on 9-11 owe there lives to the NYFD. Most of them don't live there, only commute or were in attendence from other States/Nations.

[spinestein]

[Librarians are the meanest people on earth. I'm not exagerrating.]


This is a new one.

[Dustbunny]

Why have libraries when books on sale are cheap, accessible?

I love the library. I can go and pick up 5 or more books, bring them, read them and return them. I don't have to worry about the cost of buying them or finding a place to store them after I have read them.

Start a child out with the good fundamental knowledge that reading is a subject that is necessary in all walks of life.

[Spktyr]

The NYFD doesn't do me any good here in Dallas. Sorry, but that's how it is.

The NY Public Library, on the other hand, greatly assists in historical research.

[international american]

"The tax dollars would usually be spent in a better way."

Yeah, they could, but they aren't so let us keep this last refuge of civilization please.

[jess35]

Thanks for posting this. The replies are only too predictable and show that far too many republicans are conservative only when it comes to staring...with glazed eyes...into their neighbor's bedroom and demanding that someone do something about them.

If you're going to defend protecting the taxpayer against rape by the government, it has to apply to every non-constitutional expenditure....not just the ones you don't use.

[MacDorcha]

"The NYFD doesn't do me any good here in Dallas."

Did four kids I know here in Georgia a lot of good. There dads came home.

[MitchellC]

That neglects to mention that that was the second time the library was sacked and totally destroyed. The first time was in AD 391 when fanatical Christians torched the library and its collection as being heretical. The Library never fully recovered, though much of the collection had been replaced by 642.

Sorry, but that appears to be incorrect.

"The actual history of the famous Museum library of Alex (which is said to have housed 500,000 rolls) goes like this:

Ptolemy Soter (Ptolemy I, 367-282bc) built a shine to the Muses (a Museion) and brought outstanding scholars to live there (BREC:177; HPW:55)

it was a communal society of men of science and letters , and was located in the royal precinct(BREC:178).

later, a smaller library (for overflow) was built OUTSIDE the palace area--called the "daughter" library. It contained less than 8% of the total holdings of the combined' libraries, and was connected to a pagan shrine (the Serapeum). [BREC:179-180]

The major library (Museion) was without peer in the 3rd century BCE (BREC:180), and probably had most extant classical works (HPW:55; HLWW:45).

Then--trouble begins: "Then, around 145 bce, the persecution of Alexandrian scholars and their disciples by [Ptolemy VII Physcon] Euergetes II resulted in an emigration of academic talent from the Museion and a loss of distinction in its librarians." (BREC:180)

"Ptolemy VIII [Lathyros, Soter II] (Cacergetes) came to the throne. Having been forced to leave Alexandria by his enemies, he returned in the course of a civil war (89-88bc) and burned much of the city. The students and fellows of the Museum were at least temporarily scattered...Though never reaching their former greatness, the Museum and its library were reconstituted and survived for several hundred years longer." (HLWW:46). Note: most of the damage to the library occurred before the birth of Christ!

Then, in 47 bc, when Julius Caesar was conquering Egypt, the Library was partially destroyed (HLWW:46; BREC:180)

In the first century AD, some of the volumes in the library were moved to Rome to replenish libraries there (HLWW:46)

Finally, the main Museum and library was destroyed in 273ad, when the Roman Emperor Aurelian burned much of Alexandria--including most of the Palace area. [HLWW:46-47; HPW:56; BREC:180].

It is possible that the Museum (already a shadow of the glory of the first one) was rebuilt "on a smaller scale." (HLWW:47).

But "A few years later, the city was completely sacked by Diocletian. The Museum, which had enjoyed long periods of renewed splendor during Imperial times and which had recently been restored once more to its old glory thanks to the notable efforts of the mathematician Diophantus, must have suffered terrible damage." (VL:87)

The small, daughter library--the Serapeum--was thought to have survived and WAS destroyed by the Patriarch Theophilis in 391, under the directives of Emperor Theodosius in 391. Note--this is NOT the famous library at all...it was a very small temple library.

The net of this is: Christians were NOT responsible for the destruction of the world's greatest library of antiquity! It was a victim of civil and national wars of Greece and Rome. The library of the small temple of Serapis WAS destroyed in the events of 391, but even this library was only a shadow of a shadow of a minor library."

Source

However, the major priceless works of antiquity were destroyed by *Christians*, not Muslims.

This is also wrong, especially in the broader sense. Christian scribes made copies of the classical works, just the same as they did with their own scripture. Else, how would we still have them today?

[CalRepublican]

But the NY library has already been built, as has the LA downtown library. Both are wonderful, its true.

Chicago probably already had a good library too.

There maybe one or two other branch libraries in those towns worth a darn, but that would be it.

With those libraries already in place, why would any of the suburbs need their own libraries? They're not going to be as good as the main library and probably not much better than the local bookstore.

I think the point this guy is making is that for most cities, investments in new libraries are not all that wise. Either the libraries are already there (as is the case in big cities) or the funds aren't there to create a library that's any good.

In Brownsville, where my parents live, they finally got a new library. It's nothing but Harlequin romance novels. I donated many books to the library. When I went to find them there later, they weren't there. I asked the librarian what had happened to them and was told that they sold them to buy other books because "no one would read those."

These included books from my childhood (the "Great Brain" series) and many many excellent books I had read as an adult.

[FreedomCalls]

First of all, you can browse at Amazon.

No you can't. Can you flip through the pages of a book to sample its contents before reading it? Can you go to look up a book on WWII and instead end up getting a book on Julius Caesar simply because they are shelved in the same aisle and you picked up the Caesar book because its title and spine intrigued you? That won't happen on Amazon.

Second of all, most people go to the library to find something in particular.

Not true. Lots of people go there just to pass the time reading the magazines, surfing the web, or seeing what new gardening books are in.

Public libraries often don't have what you're looking for.

Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. But often, they will have something close and just as good or better. You could go there looking for a copy of "Treason" by Ann Coulter and end up with a copy of "Slander" instead. Or maybe you will come out with something entirely different.

Shoot, back in 1985, I went looking for a copy of Jeff Smith's "Frugal Gourmet" at the Hill Valley library while visiting my Aunt and Uncle in California, but they had a waiting list so I checked out a copy of "Grays Sports Almanac 1950-2000" instead. I stupidly loaned it to my dumb cousin Biff, who promptly "lost" it. My friend Marty tried to get it back but it had a nudie magazine stuck in the covers instead. When I went to pay the fee for losing it, the library said they had no record of having it. Oh well. Biff would never have paid me for it anyway.

Curiously that stupid cousin went on to become a multimillionaire. He ran his own betting service for a while in Vegas, but sold the company in 2000 at the top of the dotcom boom.