Only Sense Online - Vol. 5 Ch. 25 - The Library, and Linguistics Part 1

[MangaDex]

 

[Weasalopes]

Hah!

Someone who understands that libraries cost money to operate, and that the economic burden must be shared by those utilizing them, unless some outside organization chooses to fund them and provide access at reduced direct cost for reasons they deem sufficient to justify the expense.

This is the model used prior to the establishment of Public Libraries; Public Libraries are funded by the community as a whole via taxes of some form, spreading the cost to everyone, and allowing all to access the materials. The adoption of this model really changed things in regard to general literacy and the level of knowledge within the population at large; it's not too surprising that the establishment of public libraries and the establishment of mandatory public education happened at about the same time, as both were attempts to increase the number of potential workers from all economic backgrounds in an increasingly knowledge based society; it's an early form of social engineering, and as such, those not interested in that aspect continue to object to assisting in funding them.

Prior to that, libraries were funded directly by those individuals using them via membership fees, etc.; depending upon the cost of the materials obtained by the library, and the number of individuals interested in accessing them, these membership fees could get pretty steep. If you couldn't afford the membership fees, then access was potentially available on a day to day basis with a daily access fee... so if you needed to access the materials a lot, the membership was the way to go, if you only needed infrequent access, a day fee became more economical. Even day fees preclude access by those who do not have the discretionary funds needed, so the ability to access the materials was directly related to your economic situation.

Actually, there are still a number of libraries that utilize this method of funding. The thing with Public Libraries is that since they are available to everyone, they have to collect materials relevant to the largest number of people possible, so they rarely have the truly specialized materials. And, the population base directly impacts the amount of funding available, so the lower the population, the less breadth and depth in the collection. Due to this, the smaller libraries tend to band together into regional cooperative systems, pooling their resources and obtaining a few copies of the more specialized materials which will then be made available via loan or reciprocal access to facilities within the cooperative system. The really large Public Library systems will have specialized collections with greater depth in certain subjects due to the number of people in that geographic area needing access justifying the greater depth. But even the largest coop Public Library systems lack depth in a great many areas due to needing breadth.

So if you need truly specialized materials, you either obtain them yourself, in which case you shoulder the entire expense (and have complete control over what is acquired and who can access them), or band together with others who also need access to such materials via a membership organization (with that organization determining what is acquired and who can access them).

Um, yes, I'm a retired librarian... who has worked in both publicly and privately funded libraries.

 

[Kaarme]

It was the "ABC for Barbarians" for Yun.

 

[NeptuneRoller]

@Weasalopes Interesting, thank you for sharing this with us.

 

[Akito_Himenokoji]

@Weasalopes Interesting thanks for the insight I always like informative comments like these.

 

[PlzNoBan]

G A N E S H A

 

[The5thSeraph]

Damned MMO money-sinks.
Damn fine librarian though. <3

 

[zeever]

Dropped, so boring