Hey subby, may you give me $200? It's a new synergy-tested paradigm I'm deploying.

Hm. Maybe they should just start charging people to check out books, instead. And then they could offer the card for a lesser amount...maybe $20 or $25 per year, and having the card could give you a discount on the book rental rate. And they could open little coffee shops in every library and sell newspapers and magazines in it and maybe a small selection of bagels, and maybe offer free Wi-Fi if you're already a customer of their provider. And they could change their name to Barnes and Noble and everyone would be happy forever.

Wow... what an amazingly stupid idea.

People in Florida read?

Wow. The more you know...

Are the public schools there user-pay too? Well, I guess the citizens can always watch Ow, My Balls.

If I lived in that community I'd be asking, "Dewey really need to pay that much to become card-carrying members of the library?"

DslainteC: If I lived in that community I'd be asking, "Dewey really need to pay that much to become card-carrying members of the library?"

Conan the Librarian frowns on your shenanigans!

Yeah, this is pretty stupid. $100/year? Of course, from this part of the article.. "We're raising our fees for tennis, we're raising our fees for golf, we're raising fees to people who want to rent out the community center, boat slips that city has.", if they are trying to compare the library to golf and tennis, they have some hoity townspeople anyway.

A better solution from a public library would be a one-time $30-40 fee to get a card, which the library would also use to deduct late charge fees on materials from for people on the card (which they could also raise up to be more like Blockbuster level late fees). If you get to the maximum of the fee amount in fees, then you would have to pay the fee again to retain your card rights, and/or the library might cancel the card because of frequent late returns/lost materials.

Pay for membership libraries used to be the standard, but since then public education has become a norm. If libraries become user-based, shouldn't schools? In other words, this is a dumb idea.

I just wish the library would scan the 50% of their stuff they haven't scanned yet, so I would not have to go there to research.

Good for them. Quit letting snot-crusted stinky hobo-children touch my books and I might subscribe.

I don't have a problem with "user pays" but who are the users here? Librarys are set up to educate the poor so they can get a job and don't rob you blind so in this case the user isn't the semiilliterate guy reading a 5th grade level book.
Lots of countries have decided that air traffic control for small planes fits the user pays model too but its not my house I'm going to crash into after mid air collision with a 747.

Libraries should be free for everyone but people should have to pay through the nose for basic medical treatment.

/also mortgage companies should be bailed out whenever possible and we should pay oil companies for exploration
//free market all the way

librarys should be free, and paid for out of property taxes, just like schools. They should be part of the school system, and available to everyone in the community.

Doesn't charging for a library defeat the purpose of a library?

According to teh Wiki: "A public library (also called circulating library) is a library which is accessible by the public and is generally funded from public sources (such as tax moneys) and may be operated by civil servants."

"Public libraries exist in most nations of the world and are often considered an essential part of having an educated and literate population."

Florida makes baby Ben Franklin cry.

A hundred bucks each card, each year?
Utter ruin for the library in no time.

Why does the city commission hate the library so much?

$100/year? Wouldn't it be cheaper to just BUY the books?

Yikes. If it wasn't for the library, I'd be making even less than I do now!

raanne:
Doesn't charging for a library defeat the purpose of a library?

Nope,
Library:1. a place set apart to contain books, periodicals, and other material for reading, viewing, listening, study, or reference, as a room, set of rooms, or building where books may be read or borrowed.

Nothing there about free.

You can buy a lot of books for $100 from amazon and avoid stepping over homeless people to get to them at the library.

A hundred bucks each card, each year?
Utter ruin for the library in no time.

No doubt

If the library goes away, where will all of the local homeless people go BM?

ZachF81: Pay for membership libraries used to be the standard, but since then public education has become a norm. If libraries become user-based, shouldn't schools? In other words, this is a dumb idea.

I just wish the library would scan the 50% of their stuff they haven't scanned yet, so I would not have to go there to research.

Cerritos, CA has a pay for semi-private city library. Only people who work in or live in the city are eligible to use services that require a card(which there is a charge for) and everyone else can pretty much only browse and use books and such onsite. And it's been successful for decades. Maybe it's because of the joke that is Los Angeles County and Orange County public libraries, I dunno, but the Cerritos City Library is the most complete and most modern library in the area

That will go over like a fart in church.

My biggest problem with this is the amount. $100? Are they farking serious? I mean, I think the whole idea stinks, but even if they do decide to do it, $100 is WAY too high. Maybe $15 or $20...?

What a great idea. Discourage the public from using library services. Brilliant.

jimjazz: That will go over like a fart in church.

pew.

Seen weeping somewhere among the dusty, lonely shelves:


/hotlinked at 451 degrees

Can I still fap in the bathroom and shower in the sink for free?

inelegy:


/hotlinked at 451 degrees

Fahrenheit or Celsius? :)

raanne: librarys should be free, and paid for out of property taxes, just like schools.

Excepting construction, schools should not be paid for with property taxes. Operating expenses should come from taxes on income and sales; only capital projects should be funded from capital resources.

According to TFA, the library in question is shared by several municipalities, and one of them (Treasure Island) has decided to stop giving them any funding. Only Treasure Island residents will be charged the $100 fee, which is completely resonable... my township's library doesn't even allow non-residents to get a card even if they want to pay for it. A municipal library is a service paid for with your municipality's tax funds. If your taxes don't pay for the service why should you be allowed to use it for free?

Pocket Ninja: Hm. Maybe they should just start charging people to check out books, instead. And then they could offer the card for a lesser amount...maybe $20 or $25 per year, and having the card could give you a discount on the book rental rate. And they could open little coffee shops in every library and sell newspapers and magazines in it and maybe a small selection of bagels, and maybe offer free Wi-Fi if you're already a customer of their provider. And they could change their name to Barnes and Noble and everyone would be happy forever.

I think I love you.

Some communitites in America are exclusive by design.
Beats putting up a fence.
/I'll be here all week, don't forget to tip your librarian.

FarkinHostile: What a great idea. Discourage the public from using library services. Brilliant.

How else are they going to dumb down the public even more, so that the people stop paying any attention whatsoever to the shenanigans the politicians are up to?

City employees would most likely be exempt, of course.

Pocket Ninja: Hm. Maybe they should just start charging people to check out books, instead. And then they could offer the card for a lesser amount...maybe $20 or $25 per year, and having the card could give you a discount on the book rental rate. And they could open little coffee shops in every library and sell newspapers and magazines in it and maybe a small selection of bagels, and maybe offer free Wi-Fi if you're already a customer of their provider. And they could change their name to Barnes and Noble and everyone would be happy forever.

You forgot the part where Amazon.com puts them out of business

blueskydei:

AH, another Bugliosi fan.
Ever check out And The Sea WIll Tell?
Good read.

It's still cheaper than spending quarter after quarter at a jack shack watching porn...

Libraries are socialistic. No wonder libs love them so much.

They can keep the library. I'll buy my own books. If you don't want brand new books, you can get them really cheap on Amazon from used booksellers.

Where I am library cards for children are free, but adults are about $15 a year. That's reasonable enough, but still in the U.S. libraries exist for the public good. An educated public benefits everyone.

More prisons! Privatize! Privatize prisons! And libraries!

(ed helms' guide to fitting in at the rnc.)

They should just raise the overdue fine from 25 cents to maybe $1000 a day and they should charge homeless people $10/hour to sit there and read the paper.

On one hand... For anyone who uses the library on a regular basis, $100/year for a card would still be a bargain. If you check out one book per month, you're still saving money over buying.

On the other hand, why do libraries exist? As the literary version of Blockbuster? No. They exist because we believe everyone should read, and so we don't want anything to stand in the way of people reading. We want our children to have free access to books so that they learn to read and enjoy reading.

However, if residents of Treasure Island are all weathy -- and certainly they are -- then they can all easily afford $100/year for a library card. And meanwhile, no poor people are being screwed out of free access to books. But if the wealthy residents of Treasure Island are too cheap or too disinterested in reading to shell out such a small pitance for a library card, and the library has to close, and some little rich kids can't go get free books any time they want... I'm not exactly going to feel bad for them.

I'm Not from Here: raanne:
Doesn't charging for a library defeat the purpose of a library?

Nope,
Library:1. a place set apart to contain books, periodicals, and other material for reading, viewing, listening, study, or reference, as a room, set of rooms, or building where books may be read or borrowed.

Nothing there about free.

Nothing there about fees, either.

I'm Not from Here: raanne:
Doesn't charging for a library defeat the purpose of a library?

Nope,
Library:1. a place set apart to contain books, periodicals, and other material for reading, viewing, listening, study, or reference, as a room, set of rooms, or building where books may be read or borrowed.

Nothing there about free.

let me rephrase - doesn't it defeat the purpose of a public library

raanne: Doesn't charging for a library defeat the purpose of a library?

Yeah, I think they call them bookstores

Too bad the Haitian/Cuban floridiots that make up 3rd world floriduh can't read as it is or they would be outraged at this article.

Library Fail (new window)

"Library"... "Library"... Hmmm... I remember that word from the dim past. Oh, yes! The place where I used to do research long, long ago. Goshiathey had the Encyclopedia Brintannica and everything! It would be so sad if they vanished. Where would people go to read the New York Times?

Let me guess. Poor people on Welfare will be exempt from this $100 fee.