The rise of Ignorance.

Those of you who are supporting the idea of making libraries obsolete are full of crap. That is all.

If you don't have a computer how do you expect to have access to information????

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6556565&mesg_id=6556565

Some posters are actually saying it's a good idea.

I just don't get the same warm feeling from a computer. Libraries to me have always been magical places. I love just walking through the stacks and browing through whatever volume that comes under my hand.

Where the hell is this library and how can I gain membership?

Are you just goofing on me or what?

:patriot:

And I wish it got cold enough to need a fireplace.

18 degrees 3 nights in a row here in Tempe a few years ago - that's three nights you could use a fireplace :) Crank your A/C super high and throw on a log :P

(I have a fireplace - I don't use it but it looks pretty)

By failing to be open more than a couple days a week, not keeping their shelves stocked with current and accurate reference mateiral and not adapting fast enough to 21st century technology.

Libraries are more than capable of making themselves obsolete.

The only way anybody else can "make" them obsolete is for government to de fund them.

it's because it's been defunded.

that makes elected officials afraid to defund them?

I guess that's really my point. The people running libraries are not politicians. They don't really how to mobilize public opinion in favor of their own funding. And they will be sucking hind tit in these budget battles until they can get down in the muck with the cops and fight dirty for their share of a shrinking public service dollar.

And yes I understand that librarians are not naturally wired that way. But unfortunately, elected politicians will never do the right thing on their own. Their survival instincts are finely tuned and they react to public fears which public safety folks have long learned how to capitalize on at budget time. In many jurisdictions here in CA, police and fire budgets consume over 75% of the locally raised tax dollars. That leaves very little for parks and recreation, planning and zoning, senior citizens programs, and libraries. (Utilities are supported by service fees and road maintenance by gas tax revenues).

It's the tax payers that vote down funding. Willfully ignorant.

I HAD to go there, but you get the drift.:hi:

or Netflix. They are going to the local library for DVDs and books.

----------------------------------------

Blockbuster may close up to 960 stores

Blockbuster (BBI), which pioneered the video rental business in the 1980s, is planning to close as many as 960 stores by the end of next year.



That would shrink the chain by more than 20% as it struggles against stiff competition from Netflix (NFLX) and Redbox.

Bing: Read more on Blockbuster
The store closures disclosed in documents filed Tuesday shows Blockbuster is having to cut much deeper than it anticipated to save money and keep its lenders happy.


http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Dispatch/market-dispatches.aspx?post=1275588

I too was shocked to see the poster in that other thread say libraries are useless! Maybe he/she should try going to one sometime instead of just talking shit about them on the internet. I LOVE my local library - is Library Month here in NC by the way and I currently have 4 books checked out! :hi:

almost anyone else in the country.

You go, librarians.

inspiring.....thx for reminder:

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nationalsecurityletters/25680res20060526.html

The National Security Letter provision of the Patriot Act radically expanded the FBI's authority to demand personal customer records from Internet Service Providers, financial institutions and credit companies without prior court approval. Through NSLs the FBI can compile vast dossiers about innocent people and obtain sensitive information such as the web sites a person visits, a list of e-mail addresses with which a person has corresponded, or even unmask the identity of a person who has posted anonymous speech on a political website. The provision also allows the FBI to forbid or "gag" anyone who receives an NSL from telling anyone about the record demand.

In August 2005, the ACLU disclosed that the FBI used an NSL to demand patron records from the Library Connection, a consortium of 26 Connecticut libraries. At the time, Congress was in the midst of a critical debate over reauthorization of the Patriot Act. One of the key issues was whether the government had used the Patriot Act to demand information from libraries.

That same month, the ACLU sought an emergency court order to lift the gag so that representatives of Library Connection in the Congressional Patriot Act reauthorization debate and disclose the fact that the FBI had used an NSL to demand library records. In September 2005, a district court judge in Connecticut ruled that the NSL gag order imposed on Library Connection was unconstitutional. In September 2005, the New York Times revealed that Library Connection was the NSL recipient in the case, but the government continued to enforce the gag on the librarians, Ultimately, in April 2006, six weeks after the Patriot Act had been reauthorized by Congress, the government dropped its legal battle to keep the gag intact, and then withdrew its demand for records altogether.

NSL CLIENTS
> Barbara Bailey
> Peter Chase
> George Christian
> Janet Nocek

http://community.livejournal.com/library_mofo

For all of those times when the gatekeepers of the world's knowledge are called upon, in their professional capacity, to use the word "motherfucker." Or at least to seriously consider it.

*Open to librarians; library associates, specialists, technicians, and paraprofessionals of all kinds; library school students; library aides and volunteers; and all of those who love libraries, or even just love a particular librarian. Welcome.

Great demonstration of true character and resolve and principle by those librarians.