Your post centers around privatizing libraries but I see absolutely no problem with that. If a community values a library then they can seek out funders - or donors as you mention - and create one that contains exactly what their community wants! Local businesses that see value in, say, providing internet service there, that include their advertising and allows them to address their local target users makes perfect sense to me.
Why do you have a problem with simply letting market forces provide the services a community is interested in?
Local citizens organizations are perfectly capable of identifying their own needs and identifying businesses that can supply them and also profit in the supply. In fact community standards are much easier to maintain when the community itself has control of what their members are exposed to - which is a problem with liberal run schools that indoctrinate rather than teach. A publicly run and publicly stocked library simply allows the liberals to provide their material and suppress ours!
This is a great opportunity for Colorado Springs to show the rest of the country how it’s done.
Because I believe that it is important, actually, that the information in a library not be subject to market forces. If a boy in a West Virginia coal mining town, whose family consists entirely of people working in the coal industry, decides he would like to learn to launch rockets into space, he should be able to. The market would not likely support one person’s interest in rocket science.
The cost of books is relatively small, and the rewards of learning are priceless.
Homer Hickham grew up in West Virginia, in a town based around a coal mine and, after learning of Sputnik’s launch, became driven to teach himself (with some help) about rockets, and eventually was influential in America’s (and the entire world’s) progress in rocket science.
The market is great for many things, and in theory, it would handle everything. If everyone acted rationally, and was always aware of everything and always fully educated, then the market would be perfect, but the world, and people, are not this way, so a few things should maybe not rely on the whims of unstable market.
Libraries, however, are so important. And our systems, and ourselves, are imperfect.
On a more practical, literal level, the greatest value of the library is that it is always there if you need it. No matter what else happens, you can count on your library to be there.
I guess the difference is that I support small, limited government in only certain areas, but you seem to support nonexistent government. Fair enough!
Besides, a library subject to market forces or the demands of the people is how you end up with Wikipedia.
Also, it shouldn’t bother you if there are liberal books in libraries. There are conservative books too. That’s one of the aspects of libraries that’s so important.
The only reason liberals could have some sort of monopoly on libraries (and I don’t think they do), is if we, as conservatives, neglect libraries because we’ve somehow already surrendered any “place of learning” as a liberal victory.