Why do we need libraries? Isn't everything on the internet?

From here via Neil Gaiman Tumblr. This is sooooo true.

Undoubtedly libraries are a good thing. The access and training that we provide for technology isn't offered by any other public service (largely because public services are rapidly becoming a dirty word in this gilded age of decadence and austerity), and without our services it wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would be a significant dimming. 

If you can take yourself out of your first world techie social media smart-shoes for a second then imagine this: you're 53 years old, you've been in prison from 20 to 26, you didn't finish high school, and you have a grandson who you're now supporting because your daughter is in jail. You're lucky, you have a job at the local Wendy's. You have to fill out a renewal form for government assistance which has just been moved online as a cost saving measure (this isn't hypothetical, more and more municipalities are doing this now). You have a very limited idea of how to use a computer, you don't have Internet access, and your survival (and the survival of your grandson) is contingent upon this form being filled out correctly. 

Do you go to the local social services office? No, you don't. The overworked staff there says that due to budget cuts they can no longer do walk-in advising, and that there's a 2 week waiting list to get assistance with filling out forms. You call them up on the by-the-minute phone you're borrowing from your cousin (wasting 15 of her minutes on hold) and they say that they can't help, but you can go to your public library. OK, so you go to your public library after work (you ask your other cousin to watch your grandson for the day since wasting those minutes has temporarily burned some bridges). Due to budget cuts the library no longer has evening hours, sorry, try again (and you also don't get back the bus-fare or money you spent on a hack to get across town to the nearest branch, since other budget cuts closed the one in your neighborhood). OK, so you come back on the weekend. You ask the overworked librarian at the desk to sign up for a computer. She testily tells you that you're at the wrong desk, and that sign-ups are at circulation. You feel foolish and go over to the circulation desk, who tells you that you need to sign up for a library card to use the computer. After filling out the forms the librarian starts to make your card for you, and informs you that she can't process a card, since you have fines from 2 years ago that total fifty dollars. It's an emergency, you say, you need to use the computer. She sighs heavily, informs you that it's against policy, and then prints a guest pass anyway. You get 30 minutes at a time for a total of 2 hours per day. Computers are on the second floor. 

You go up to the second floor to find a total of 20 computers with a waiting list of 15 people. You do some quick math in your head, and realize you're probably going to be here for a while, so you walk over to the magazine section, and read People while you wait. Finally, it's your turn. You walk over to your terminal, and your time starts ticking. Your breath seizes in your chest, and you realize you have no idea what to do. You have the form that they gave you at the social services office, which has an address, which you sort of know what that does, but you can't quite remember – 17 minutes, by the way. You try typing X City Social Services in a box at the top, a page comes back and says “address not found” with a list of things below it. You're panicking, because there's a line forming (there always is) and the library will probably close before you can make it back on – 10 minutes, by the way. After a little more fumbling and clicking you have no luck, you're kicked off, and immediately someone is standing behind you to use your computer. You relinquish your seat, and head back down stairs. You're about to leave, already trying to think of who you know who has a computer who might let you use it, and might know about filling out these forms, but the only person you can think of is your friend in the county, and taking a bus out there would be awfully expensive.

Before leaving you decide to try one last thing. You go up to the desk, and explain your situation. The tired, overworked person at the desk nods along, and says, “well, we're not supposed to do this, but...” and tells you to walk around the desk. With a few clicks on the mouse they have the site up that you spent 30 minutes trying to find. They bring up the electronic form, politely turn their head aside as you fill in your social security number, and then ask you a series of questions to satisfy the demands of the form. It comes to your email address, and you have to admit that you don't have one, so the librarian walks you through setting up a free one and gives it to you on a slip of paper. “We have free computer classes,” he says (and you're lucky, because a great deal of public libraries don't), but you look at the times and realize that between your job and taking care of your grandson you'd never be able to attend, and it'd probably be too hard anyway. You thank him, and he smiles, and you leave. Congratulations, you've staved off disaster until the next time you need to use a computer for a life-essential task.

Now let's start that again, but this time you don't speak English. Just kidding, I don't want to give you too much culture shock in one day.

I have shortened this a bit. It was written by codacorolla, a library school student and library worker, in a thread responding to the fact that a large amount of state funding was recently cut from California libraries.

Comments

[Carole]

Sad but true. We provide an essential service but the ones in charge of our funding don't see it that way very often. It's all about "schools, police & fire" but let's face it, you only use schools for a limited number of years and you hope you never need to use police and fire. The library, though? You can use that for life!

[gayle]

I used to be able to use our regional library, but budget cuts made it no longer open to the public. Our local library is small, with a small budget, and whacky hours, but I use it regularly. It's my portal to inter-library loan, which I have to use a lot since our collection is seriously limited. I actively encourage everyone in our area to use the library, for fear that we'll lose it...

[Lisa]

What amazes me is that our governor has NO CLUE... even though he was on the street as a 12 year old, and even though English isn't his first language. He was EXTREMELY lucky. He grew up in a time and in a community where people helped other people... he would never survive these days, or certainly not to be a successful businessman... he'd likely be in jail.

[k]

Poor people time, it's called.
My brother just got laid off, after 17 years. He's learning computer literacy - at his library.

[Melissa]

We need to retain a few places of culture in every community. Even if all you use the library for is the free computer. I went by my local one yesterday. Found two title in nonfiction that I wanted to buy, but didn't feel that was a good use of resources ('Sides, I'd have to wait to get the package from a on-line retailer and I'm not feeling patient.) Then wandered over to the knitting, spinning, etc. section and found a few other book that I wanted to look at. ON the going forward front libraries may become the only place you can look at a book before you decide to buy it. Of course this is a different issue.

Besides where else can I go to try and find out if there is a translation of a 7th century 20 volume text that my husband is curious about. (He found it in an end note in his current fun book and neither of us have any Latin if that's it's language.)

[Carrie#K]

And *that* is why we should save the dead-tree books.

Well, maybe not why, but it's one of the reasons. That's a beautifully written defense of libraries! It's so sad that we need it.

[soxanne]

:-(

:-)

[k]

That's possibly a good thing about this crap economy. Formerly not-poor and therefore respectable people are finding out what it's like. Just a hint of schaudenfreud (or however it's spelled) there, but it's time for the grown-ups to learn how much it sucks at the bottom.

[bullwinkle]

o.m.g. and you just described my mother. Except she's 74 and not in dire circumstances. (I randomly called her last week, and she was in tears searching for a doctor's phone number - no more phone books. I found it on my smart phone, while talking to her, and walking dogs. And then I wondered how everyone else does it.)

What a wonderful piece - it needs more distribution. I'm going to link to it. Hope you don't mind.

[Miz S]

Passing this on to my daughter, who is a library science program at U of MD.