by frog
“Having fun isn’t hard if you’ve got a library card,” or so sang Arthur on a TV show the tadpoles used to watch. News that that Tauranga City council plans to charge for adult loans has taken a bit of that fun out of having a card.
While most other councils have signalled that they won’t be hopping in Tauranga’s direction the implications of such a move are unnerving.
What is a library? It is a store of humanity’s knowledge and creativity; a place where you can go and get a book, take it home, digest it and then use your new found knowledge to benefit yourself and society.
Speaking from my lillypad in the corridors of power, I know that MPs have an awesome library. An MP can go in there and read away, or even get a book sent straight to her desk.
It is unfair that in communities with many people on benefits and low wages they have to pay to get out a book. Libraries play an essential role because they are free.
If, as Mr Thornton from No More Rates suggests, beneficiaries and elderly were to be exempt from the charge, someone else would still be paying for the service. The only difference is central government would have to pick up the tab.
“The notion of ‘free’ libraries dates back to victorian days – in times when such a service was largely a welfare benefit for the poor and needy, and partly to be a source of munimum education. And were usually paid for by volutary organisations and their philanthropic supporters.”
Perhaps since Mr Thornton thinks the Victorian age was so great with its philanthropist funded libraries he can also do without sanitation and the computer he sent his press release off. While we have come a long way since then it is important to note that part of the reason is probably access to rate-payer funded libraries.
Barbara Garriock, the President of The Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa, highlights the bare minimum that is required from a library
1. Public libraries should be free and universally available.
2. Public library services should be available free of charge, except such charges as defined in the Standards. (Link to document here [pdf].)
Information is the cornerstone of a free and open democracy. Everyone should have open and free access to give them a chance to educate themselves, and to perhaps read Dan Brown’s next blockbuster.
Published in Society & Culture by frog on Fri, January 29th, 2010
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Anyone would be able to use any library for free, there could be better co-operation between libraries on special collections, and better electronic resources negotiated for electronic library access by the public.
It would also mean the library system could employ more national expert subject librarians than any one city could afford, and have libraries across the country benefit.
Sure, someone has to pay for libraries, but the price signal should be to encourage people to educate themselves, not discourage it. The business round-table types who go running to Rodney Hide to stop councils providing free libraries just don’t realise how what a good deal they are getting when their employees come pre-educated.
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It takes the single most civilizing thing about our society and turns it into a user-pays caricature. If I go to the library and take the book off the shelf and read it in the library, without removing it, I will no doubt be subjected to a fee for that as well once they realize that I am enjoying the book.
This is wrong on so many levels it renders me almost speechless. The only way anyone could come up with such nonsense is to be wedded to an inhuman ideology.
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That’s it right there. To them we’re “customers” aka “consumers”, not humans.
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Oooo…. what a quote…
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Good on them.
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Good on the ratepayers, don’t you mean….
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“wedded to an inhuman ideology”
Chew on that Blue!
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@A1kmm-
actually, we do have a national library service; it’s based in the National Library in Molesworth St, Wellington, and incorporates the Country Library Service, which has depot libraries all over the provinces – to service country schools that are too far from a public library for school children to access recreational reading books.
Libraries have been a core service of our education system for decades – most urban primary schools have a school library as a matter of course; most urban children have a public library card as a matter of course, too, with programs at Central and suburban branch libraries to encourage child visitors of all levels. It’s not just adult education that will take a direct hit, but also the literacy and enjoyment of books that is built up in children who learn about libraries.
As a child on a back-country farm, one of my stand-out memories of visits to my paternal grandparents was the ritual visit to the local library on day one of the holiday, so that we had some fresh books to read whilst staying. The bustle of the centre of the city, the excitement of finding books in a two-storey library building, all bound up with the joy of actually reading, curled up on Nanna’s couch, when the inevitable wet day occurred.
The decision by early local government bodies to invest in Public Libraries was far-sighted and generous; but also a mechanism to create a more literate, intelligent society in the future.
BP-
given some of the discussions you have contributed to on this blog, I suggest that you begin to use your local library forthwith.
Beginnning in the non-fiction stacks….
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Absolutely. Good on them.
Rate payers do have the choice and always have. Free libraries are simply a great innovation of civilisation and I hope very few go the way of Tauranga.
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Free libraries are just part of the cost of democracy and having a literate citizenary where education isn’t a class privilege. I suppose reading books might be a hobby for some kids but I can’t see why you’d want to penalise it.
Some people use more roads, some people use more parks, some people use more libraries, some people produce more sewerage, some people need more health care. I can’t imagine that charging for everything could be efficient. Putting in wheelchair ramps adds a significant cost to footpaths – what are you going to do? Put in a turnstile and charge users extra while those who don’t need tham have to step around them?
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BP, none of your posts have been deleted, nor can I see any in the moderation or spam filters.
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and to be honest, when it comes to sharing knowledge and educating the community, I would far prefer an organisation like the city council or government to be in control rather than some special interest charity group like a church for example.
At least a council or government can be voted out if the people feel the information is biased.
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Isn’t that what we have now?
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and I don’t believe intelligence = wealth.
I also believe most intelligent people would fund free education but I don’t believe most wealthy people would.
Wealthy people are particularly good at not spending money, it seems to me that characteristic would help them become wealthy and maintain it in the first place.
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Can’t see where anyone mentioned expanding the Government either!
Odd way to argue.
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I go to my local library every Saturday and happily pay a $25 annual sub and 50 cents for new books.
The library is no longer a source of information for me.
I’ve got the world’s largest library sitting on my desk. And its searchable.
And the library is connected to the interloan system so I can order up a book if I want.
It’s run mainly by volunteer pensioners and is nice little meeting place.
What’s the problem?
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It needs to be our councils and government that run the libraries so they can be held accountable when things are found to be biased and unfair.
I care far more for those children (who can’t vote) and poor (who often don’t vote – why worry about voting when you have a sick child you can’t afford to take to the doctor and your power’s just been cut off.) than I do about a few people who can afford to own their own home quibbling over the tiny percent that covers the cost of the public library on their rates bill each year.
Have a generous heart and help empower these less fortunate in our community to educate themselves so they too can strive to improve their circumstances and perhaps one day, own their own home, just like you.
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Personally, whenever I go into a library in Auckland on a weekday I see a lot of kids there hanging out after school and reading or using the computers. Lots of them look like low-income kids whose parents can’t really afford for them to do much else (no ballet classes).
Isn’t it better for them to be reading and getting excellent computer skills than be out breaking windows?
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Manukau City libraries charge to borrow a top 10 book, or CD/DVD.
Checkout is nearly all user operated.
Manukau City provide free pools, but charge for sauna/spa pool.
How far above sea level is Tauranga?
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They don’t have a monopoly of course.
My mother ran a lending library at Kings Store near Takapuna for many years.
I suppose video libraries have taken over.
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If we are to put all our faith in the wealthy donating their time to run free public services, I’d like you to tell me what you do in your community, what free charity work you’re doing in your free time to help the less fortunate? and who do you donate your money to?
If I’m to have faith, faith that the wealthy are so virtuous, so generous, prove to me why I should trust that you act in a socially responsible manner, that you “care” – by choice. That I should give up a valuable service currently available to me and just “trust” that the wealthy are going to understand and think about my struggles before their own?
Puhleeease.
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I’d be unlikely to donate time, but I certainly donate money. If I had more time and less money, then I’d donate time.
I have a self-selected charity list. We also have provisions in our wills to give most of our wealth away in the form of an education scholarship for the underprivileged.
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I have a suspicion that library users will continue to use libraries (unless the fees are way too high and buying books is cheaper). In fact the problem is getting the non-users into the library; charging fees certainly won’t encourage this.
I know children who would love to go to the library, but because they are too young to get there by themselves, and their parents don’t value books, then they never go. Getting these kids (who have the desire to read) into libraries is hard enough. Telling their parents they will have to cough up for the books the kids borrow (because the kids are too young to have a job, and the parents can’t afford pocket money) is guaranteed to keep the kids away from the library.
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Perhaps Steve Jobs has it right with his iPad.
No?
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Hi BP,
Re January 29, 2010 at 4:05 PM, as a sample (possibly) intelligent person, I prefer to delegate many of the decisions about what I (should and often do) want to local government, because I tend to find out quickly when they take positive actions that I disagree with, but searching for all of the important things I haven’t thought of yet would be *really* *really* hard.
Free-to-the-reader libraries are one of the things I have delegated. If you wanted to make the same delegation, but not to the same people, how would you like the people chosen, to whom you would delegate it.
A more general comment: how many homeless people are there in Tauranga, who are also poor and like reading? Would they feel comfortable about spending their days in the library, reading the books that they now cannot borrow?
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The Google project is well underway.
I have given permission to digitalise my children’s books.
And recently I turned up on Google a paper I wrote on density and development costs for the NZ Geographer back in 1966. They are focusing on pre-Web publications because they are the “lost ones’.
The digital divide is about 1996.
Much is free but to get the whole digital book you have to buy or subscribe but often you just want the search page (review size so breach of copyright.)
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Libraries should be free, available nationally and of high quality, I am more than happy to pay the rates required…
Anything else is unacceptable in the NZ I want to live in…
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Why is the Lower Hutt Library in Eastbourne bigger than the Library in Naenae and Taita? By having quasi-user pays with rates determined by property value we get the wealthy exerting more influence over council activities.
Bottom line is democracy shafts the ignorant and the lazy. Neither group complains.
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sorry, that should be “no breach of copyright”.
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Who needs a library filled with multiple copies of books by Michael Laws and Ian Wishart any way? ‘Atlas Shrugged’ as a door-stop. ‘I’ve Been Thinking’s’ on every table as coasters for your Pimms.
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If anything, the best libraries should be in the poorer areas.
Again, I ask, why are libraries funded via rates?
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BP,
I’m making this up as I go along. I think it’s a money-gives-accountability thing. They should respond to the people who read there, which could be achieved with charging, but I think we want people without dollars to read, because:
– it makes democracy work better
– education leads to reduced violence
(sorry, I don’t have links; these are both scuttle-butt)
so local government (ie rates) is a convenient bodge to get one-person-one-vote control of libraries, rather than one-dollar-one-vote control.
If we delegated them to someone else, they probably would be funded differently. I ask again: who do you want them delegated to, and/or how do you want us to choose those people?
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