The public library - still the best deal going
Monday, January 25, 2021 at 06:45AM
Even before the pandemic, I rarely darkened the door of a public library building.
But even so, this month alone my public library has saved me about $38. Using Overdrive's Libby, I have read Deacon King Kong, Leave Only Footprints, and The Silence. Amazon gets plenty of my money as well, but this January, not quite as much. I also check out audio books and magazines from our county library system.
Our library system recently switched from providing ebooks on Cloud Library to Libby. I don't know how the number and variety and currency of titles compare, but I love the fact that I can easily read Libby titles on my Kindle, with all the features I have grown to expect from that format. (I've been a KIndle user since June 2008. Buying books is one of my not-so guilty pleasures. In 2020 alone I bought 34 books - about $500 worth.
In 2011, I wrote in What is the new economic model for libraries?:
The economic rationale for libraries has always been simple: It's less expensive to buy one book and share it than it is to buy a book for everyone. (See Common Sense Economy)
And that worked just fine when information and entertainment came in atoms and only one person could access one container o'information at a time. It worked best when information and its physical containers were expensive for the average person. It worked well when people seemed OK with paying taxes to support the common good - like public libraries and public schools.
But libraries need to find a new economic rationale for their existence other than sharing - and fast - since sharing doesn't really work anymore - or will stop working soon.
It seems I may have been wrong. Thank goodness. Maybe the old economic still works in the digital age. Here is hoping it works long into the future.
P.S. The public library in my small hometown of Sac City, Iowa, had truly been a life-saver for my 88 year old mother. Confined to her home by the virus, the library has gone out of its way to provide her a constant flow of reading materials.
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