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From: legg <legg@nospam.magma.ca>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: OT: Public libraries
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2025 19:34:22 -0400
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On Tue, 22 Apr 2025 22:46:34 -0700, Don Y
<blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:

>On 4/22/2025 10:01 PM, legg wrote:
>> On Tue, 22 Apr 2025 14:40:29 -0700, Don Y
>> <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
>> 
>>> On 4/22/2025 1:43 PM, legg wrote:
>>>> One of the benefits of library computers is access to the
>>>
>>> Yes, but one can access that from home (computer, phone).  Hence
>>> my comment regarding storing books in "high cost" spaces instead
>>> of "in a back room"; if the staff are the ones who will be
>>> PICKING the books, then there is no need for the co$metic$ of
>>> public stacks.
>>>
>> <snip>
>> 
>> Anything that requires home hardware or internet payments is shifting
>> the publicly costed structure onto the backs of a public that can not
>> always afford it.
>> 
>> It's the reason public libraries were developed by altruists
>> in the first place.
>
>But, by that reasoning, shouldn't healthcare, transportation,
>potable water, food, education, etc. ALSO be "free" to those
>populations?
>
>Yet, you wouldn't want to shame them into admitting their *need*...
>
>I've always seen the libraries as something that serves the ENTIRE
>public, not just a portion thereof.
>
Hence they should continue to serve those without home computers 
or expensive internet service contracts.

I'm not discussing health care, civic infrastructure, food marketing 
, government education policy or etceteras; only the current function 
 of public libraries ( in light of their immediate conventional 
 purpose ).

Libraries, by themselves, don't NEED a public, and for millenia did 
not serve them in any direct manner. There are many libraries today 
that have no obligation to allow your (or anybody elses) access .

RL