1) Their core mission is books.
2) Reasonable options to rent movies exist. No reasonable options to rent books exist. It's much more important to provide a service that isn't available otherwise than to compete with one that is.
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- Thread starter Rhea
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1) Their core mission is books.
2) Reasonable options to rent movies exist. No reasonable options to rent books exist. It's much more important to provide a service that isn't available otherwise than to compete with one that is.
RavenSky
The Doctor's Wife
Not everyone can afford video rentals. That is why the library has them available.
There are plenty of reasonable options to buy books. Are you worried that public libraries cut into the profits of private businesses which sell books?
AthenaAwakened
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The library part isn't the problem for certain folk, but the PUBLIC part.
The commons are always a waste and interacting with people not personally known to you is always dangerous.
Better to live a life unto oneself surrounded by things one owns. That way one has control and protection.
Otherwise...
ANARCHY!
The commons are always a waste and interacting with people not personally known to you is always dangerous.
Better to live a life unto oneself surrounded by things one owns. That way one has control and protection.
Otherwise...
ANARCHY!
Their core mission is information.
When Public Libraries were first started, many many people thought books were frivolous diversions for the rich...
Reasonable options to rent movies are not always available, you are wrong in that. Redbox has a very limited just released playlist and no medium term, archival, documentary or science based. Also there are plenty of places to buy used books for the price of a movie rental. But they aren't going to have either brand new titles nor archival ones.
Jimmy Higgins
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My County voted against Emergency technology (911) upgrades.
This is good news.
One of the peculiar things about Louisiana politics is our dependence on sales taxes for municipal revenues. Property taxes on residences are seen as immoral, so we over tax commercial property and have high sales taxes to compensate. The Library system and our public park commission are given a share of the sales tax revenues. This makes them independent of the regular government budgets. The City Council can't cut the library or park budget, in order to balance the overall budget. As a result, we have a fine library and park system.
It's all part of a general distrust of elected officials. Our state constitution puts a lot of limits on what state and local officials can do to generate tax revenues. Most changes have to be executed through a constitutional amendment. Last Tuesday, I had to consider an amendment concerning the retirement plans of firemen and policemen in New Orleans. There was another amendment which concerned game wardens in another parish(county). It's a cumbersome method. Some elections may have as many as twenty or more amendments. In the 1970's, there was an election which featured 64 separate amendments and all were voted down. This resulted in a convention to rewrite the State Constitution to try and remedy this problem, but I think it made little difference.
Wow.