Library Sales - I Give Up!

"Jonathan Sachs" <llm040609 RemoveThis @earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:x2_Nc.1658$cK.1654@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> "Todd T" <tttNOSPAM RemoveThis @megapipe.net> wrote in message
> news:maRNc.22$Zn2.11@fe39.usenetserver.com...
>
> > If you were representative of a large segment of the population, I would
> > agree, but I don't think you are...
>
> You are not expressing the idea in its most extreme form, but you are
> advocating a principle of "majority rule" in the sense that because I
> represent a minority of the library's potential users, I deserve none of
its
> resources.
>
> No, I hear you say; you just think that I deserve a share of uts resources
> in proportion to my numbers. Well, fundamentally I agree with that. But
it's
> not the logical outcome of the practices described here as high-level
> official policy, and it what I'm getting.
>
> I did not decide at some point that the public library doesn't have enough
> books that interest me, so I won't use it any more. Here is what happened:
> at some point I cleaned out my wallet and found that my library card had
> expired several years before, and I hadn't even noticed. That's how I knew
> what the library was worth to me. And it was not because I wasn't reading
> books.
>
>

Another way to put that initial thought is: no collection can interest
everyone, so it is better to maximize the number that are interested than to
cater to a particular minority (even though I may be part of that minority
myself).

Actually, though, when I characterized you as atypical, I meant to be
responding to the point that it is politically unwise for public libraries
to fail to seek the support of the literary. I'm thinking that it is less
unwise than it might seem, because some of the literary do find value in the
library as it is, and the remainder such as yourself are few enough that, no
matter how supportive and convincing they may be, they couldn't carry the
day anyway. I don't know this for sure, but I speculate it may be so.

I do think there is room in a library system, at least a large one, to
satisfy at least some of your needs as well as those of the masses.
Inter-library loan, though, seems like a more efficient approach to this
than trying to ensure that a particular library has as broad a coverage as
possible.

It may not sound like it, but I do sympathise with your frustration. But
when I step back and look at it, I don't feel that the public libraries are
a dire wasteland, and I don't begrudge the handful of pennies it costs me to
run them, nor do I feel guilty picking your pocket for them either.

- Todd T.